Theognis of Nicæa, withdrew his adhesion; and the two friends were banished into Gaul.

Such we believe to be a faithful account of the origin and issue of this celebrated council. We regard it very much as an inevitable result of the political necessities of the times, adroitly converted to the triumph of a particular theological theory by the energy and decision of Athanasius. It was a matter of little moment to freedom of thought (had mankind been then capable of exercising it) and to the influence of pure and spiritual Christianity, as we now conceive it, whether the Athanasian or the Arian system gained the victory. The immediate practical result would probably have been the same in either case. Of the two, we are inclined to think that the Homoüsian doctrine involved a larger element of fundamental truth, and fewer liabilities to hurtful error, monstrous as the form undoubtedly was which it ultimately assumed, than the Homoiusian. The real distinction was more than the retention or the omission of a single letter. The former asserted an identity of essence between the Father and the Son, and the possibility of a perfect union between this divine essence and humanity. It was at bottom, therefore, Unitarian, and contained the germ of the idea which a later theology has so fruitfully developed, that all mind throughout the universe is of one nature, and that in the spiritual sympathy which unites it, all faith, all worship, all love, all aspirations after the good, the beautiful, and the true, have their root. The Arian hypothesis, on the other hand, while affirming Christ to be God, and of similar nature to the Father, contended that, as a creation out of nothing, he was of distinct essence or substance, and so placed an impassable chasm between the Father and the Son. In its very principle, therefore, this theory was dualistic, and brought with it innumerable opportunities for a new development and more specious vindication of the polytheism and the hero-worship which still exercise so powerful a sway over the human mind. It was possibly some dim consciousness of this affinity which predisposed Constantine and other converted heathens to the adoption of Arianism. In the preceding century the subtle intellect of Origen had attempted to remove the difficulty, and bridge over the chasm between the two natures of God and Christ, by his doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son; but the distinction was far too refined for the grasp of the popular understanding, and, in spite of the decision of the council, Arianism kept its hold on the mind of the East for more than a century. Violating his own decree, Constantine himself lapsed into it before his death. Two of his successors in the East, Constantius and Valens, were fanatical and persecuting Arians; and the Gothic tribes, converted in the fourth century, all embraced this form of Christianity.

But the short experience of Arian rule gives no warrant to the supposition, that it would have benefited the world by finally excluding Athanasianism. We get a clear view of the reign of Constantius in the contemporary pages of Ammianus Marcellinus; and for a picture of a suspicious, cruel, and cowardly tyrant, his narrative, though inferior in execution, might almost be hung as a companion to Tacitus's masterly delineation of Tiberius.*

On the subject of this first council, another question will sometimes force itself into the mind. At Nicæa the foundationstone was laid of that vast edifice of sacerdotal sway which overshadowed Europe for centuries, and held in durance within its impregnable walls not only the feeble survivors of the old civilisation, but the fierce and warlike peoples who subjugated them. Would a perfectly free Christianity (had that been possible, and Constantine never allied himself with the hierarchy) have more effectually accomplished its object, and yielded a better result? The question is a difficult one, as Providence has itself anticipated the means of fully replying to it. The hierarchy prevailed, and we can measure its work. What might have been the consequence of the other alternative, we can only conjecture. We know, indeed, that free missionaries had preached a simple gospel in Gaul, in Britain, in Ireland, and in Germany, as early as the third, fourth, and fifth centuries, before their labours were appropriated, and their exertions checked and put down by the emissaries of Rome. That they had gained the respect and confidence of the natives in our own island, we learn from the impartial testimony of Bede; and that the same was the case in Ireland, may be inferred from the dim traditions that float round the name of Patrick, and the early renown of that mysterious land for learning and piety, and missionary enterprise. Possibly a latesurviving growth of seed thus early sown, protected by forests and ice-bound rocks from the encroachments of Rome, may be seen to this day among the Vaudois of the Alps. Less plentifully furnished with the outward agencies of civilisation, there was some danger, no doubt, lest the labours of these faithful and devoted men should, in process of time, unaided by support from some strong central authority, be absorbed in the superstitions and manners of the fierce and barbarous tribes among whom they had penetrated. We possess faint legendary indications of the character of this early ante-Roman Christianity in the far West, which imply a concession to religious ideas and usages already existing, similar to what Dr. Stanley describes as still conspicuous in the degraded Church of Abyssinia. Even the agents of Rome, with all their advantages and the great influence at their back, could

Possibly the imitation was intended: that would be quite in harmony with the genius of Ammianus and his age.

not escape the frequent necessity of such a compromise. But Rome, with the temporal power to help her, could always in the long-run enforce her system, and present it in definite forms and under a fixed dogmatic aspect, which the barbarian mind could lay hold of and superstitiously cling to. Her process of conversion, therefore, was more rapid and more complete; but she enthralled the minds which she won; and it has yet to be seen, how Europe will be able finally to disengage herself from the mental fetters which were laid on her as the conditional possibility of entering at an earlier date into the circle of a compact, secure, and organised civilisation. There is a seed of vital power in Christianity which, as we believe, will survive the most disastrous influences, and come out finally with greater beauty and strength from the very freedom with which it has been permitted to grow. But had it been left entirely to itself in that age of overthrow and convulsion, its growth must have been tardier and more precarious. It would have been exposed to more crushing dangers. There might have been seasons when it would have seemed altogether to perish; and when at length it emerged into life, it would have come probably unattended by many adjuncts which are now almost identified with Christianity itself. There are crises in human history where two perfectly distinct courses seem to lie open before humanity, but where God prevents man and leaves him only one. It is not the least interesting reflection in relation to the Council of Nicæa, that it was the first and decisive term in a series of influences, which determined the direction of human thought and human action for hundreds of years, and of which we have yet to see the issue.

Of the course of proceedings at this first council of Christendom, and of the persons who prominently figured in it, Dr. Stanley has given a very animated and graphic account. The original minutes, if there ever were such, have perished; but we get our information at first hand from two contemporary sources, which, as representing opposite interests in the council, can be advantageously balanced against each other,-Athanasius and Eusebius of Cæsarea. The later authorities, Philostorgius, Epiphanius, and Theodoret, also belong to different parties; and the lay historians, Socrates and Sozomen, who lived in the next century, probably derived many facts from aged persons, whose early memories almost went back to the time of the council itself. There is no want, therefore, of authentic materials. Dr. Stanley, in the true spirit of historical research, has gone direct to the original sources, and, weaving together with remarkable. felicity the picturesque and characteristic features suggested by them, has given an interest and reality to his narrative, which a general abstract, though implying more thought, could never

possess. He has not even refused to collect a reflex light from the legends of a later age, which furnish by comparison a measure of the growth of papal pretensions and theological calumny. True to his leading idea, that the proper materials of Ecclesiastical History are events and persons, and that councils may be viewed as the pitched battles of the Church, he has brought out with great distinctness the principal characters that appear on the scene, and elaborated with peculiar care the two figures which occupy the foreground of the picture,-Constantine and Athanasius. Of the former, we regard his estimate as substantially just. In some instances, perhaps, he may have too closely followed the courtly biographer Eusebius, and borrowed his own picturesque touches with too implicit a confidence from the gaudy colouring of episcopal rhetoric. Nevertheless we agree with Dr. Stanley, that if Constantine could not in himself be considered great, he possessed that sort of historical greatness which results from the coincidence of the hour and the man. Constantine belonged to his age, and understood it. We must never forget, that Christianity worked its way into life through a decaying civilisation. It was a plant growing up amidst ruins, striking its roots in the dank dark crevices of mouldering foundations, clinging to broken columns, and twining round masses of fallen masonry. But it was bearing seed, to be dropped into another soil, and to be wafted by the winds of heaven into fields far distant. This must be borne in mind in estimating the agencies by which it worked and spread, in which it found its earliest support and propagation. They partook of the character of their age. Viewed in any other light, the outward history of the Church will be likely to repel and disgust us. Ideas, however fruitful and beneficent, cannot escape the conditions of historical development. In fact the deeper they go down into human nature, and the closer they lie to the human heart, the more subject they are to endless mutations of form. We cannot, therefore, adopt without some qualification the language of Mr. J. S. Mill, that "it is one of the most tragical facts of all history, that Constantine, rather than Marcus Aurelius, was the first Christian Emperor." He regrets what was, so far as we can read the signs of that remote age, an historical impossibility. Marcus Aurelius belonged to the classical past, then gradually vanishing away. He was, moreover, a philosophical enthusiast; and had he filled the place of Constantine, he could only have produced additional irritation by fruitlessly endeavouring to arrest the onward course of events, and by infusing a new element of fanaticism into a conflict already fierce and destructive enough. The *Eastern Church, pp. 211, 212.

Essay on Liberty, p. 58, quoted Eastern Church, p. 217.

short reaction under Julian shows what would have been the probable result of such an attempt on a larger scale and by a stronger hand. Julian had finer qualities and a more cultivated mind than Constantine; but he was, as Strauss has described him, a "Romanticist on the throne." He lived amidst the beautiful dreams of an imaginary antiquity, and struggled to restore what was irrecoverably gone. Constantine had less pure and lofty aspirations; but he dealt with his age practically, and gave to society a form and organisation, which, if not the best conceivable, was the only one then possible.

There will, perhaps, in some quarters, be stronger dissent from Dr. Stanley's judgment of Athanasius. For ourselves, we agree with him. Many years ago, when we first studied connectedly this period of Christian history, we came to the same conclusion that Athanasius, for clearness of aim, singleness of purpose, intrepidity, and energetic will, was by far the greatest man that took part in the deliberations at Nicæa, and in the manifold conflicts which resulted from them. His whole conduct stands out in advantageous contrast with the vacillation and compromise of Eusebius. Dr. Stanley's vivid portraiture of this extraordinary person is one of the most interesting portions of his volume:

"He is the most remarkable representative of the Church of Egypt. So he is still regarded by the Coptic Church, and so he must have been at the time. What his own race and lineage may have been, it is difficult to determine. We know that he himself wrote and spoke in Greek; but he also was able to converse in Coptic. His personal appearance throws but little light on this question. He was of very small stature, a dwarf rather than a man (so we know from the taunt of Julian);* but, as we are assured by Gregory Nazianzen, of almost angelic beauty of face and expression. To this, tradition adds that he had a slight stoop in his figure; a hooked nose, and small mouth; a short beard, which spread out into large whiskers; and light auburn hair; and this last characteristic has been found on the heads of Egyptian mummies, and therefore is compatible with a pure Egyptian descent. His name might seem to indicate a Grecian parentage; but the case of 'Antony,' who was an undoubted Copt, shows that this cannot be relied upon."†

"The qualities that seem most forcibly to have struck his contemporaries, seem rather to have been the readiness and versatility of his gifts. An Oxford poet, in the Lyra Apostolica, has sung of

'The royal-hearted Athanase,

With Paul's own mantle blest."

Whatever may have been the intention of this comparison, it is certain that there was a resemblance between the flexibility of Athanasius and the many-sided character of the Apostle, whose boast it was to have † Pp. 263, 4.

* Μηδὲ ἀνήρ ἀλλ ̓ ἀνθρωπίσκος εὐτελής. Εp. 51.