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42 and before all time, there was—Arius refused to use such terms as χρόνος or αἰών—when He did not exist. The subsequent controversy shows that the absence of the words χρόνος or αἰών was a mere evasion, and that when defending himself he argued in just the same manner as though he had used those words. Moreover, he asserted that the Logos had an ἀρχή (beginning); yet not only Athanasius, but Origen before him, had taught that the relation of the Son to the Father had no beginning, and that, to use Dorner's words (Person of Christ, ii. 115), "the generation of the Son is an eternally completed, and yet an eternally continued, act"; i.e. the Father has, from all eternity, been communicating His Being to the Son, and is doing so still.

Arius was obviously perplexed by this doctrine, for he complains of it in his letter to the Nicomedian Eusebius, who, like himself (see above), had studied under Lucian, in the words, ἀειγεννής ἐστίν; ἀγεννητογενής ἐστίν. It is unquestionably to be lamented that so much stress should have been laid in the controversy on words which, when used, not popularly, but in metaphysical discussions, had a tendency to confound the eternal generation of the Son with the purely physical process of the generation of men and animals. The latter is a single act, performed at a definite moment in time. The former is a mysterious, eternal process, for ever going on. Had the defenders of the Nicene doctrine made more general use of the term communication of Being, or Essence, they would have made it clearer that they were referring to a continual and unchangeable relation between the First and Second Persons in the Trinity, which bore a very slight analogy indeed to the process which calls inferior creatures into existence. Moreover, Arius contended that the Son was unchangeable (ἄτρεπτος). But what he thus gave with the one hand he appears to have taken away with the other. For so far as we can understand his language—on a subject which even Athanasius seems to have admitted to have been beyond his power thoroughly to comprehend—he taught that the Logos was changeable in Essence, but not in Will. The best authorities consider that he was driven to this concession by the force of circumstances. [See art. Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Arius, Followers of.] He was doubtless confirmed in his attitude by his fear of falling into Sabellianism [&#8202;Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Sabellius, heretic&#8202;], which practically represented the Logos as a sensuous emanation of the Godhead for the purpose of carrying out the work of salvation, or else as a purely subjective human conception of certain aspects of the Divine Being—not as an eternal distinction subsisting objectively in the Godhead itself. Arius, while opposing the Sabellian view, was unable to see that his own view had a dangerous tendency to bring back Gnosticism, with its long catalogue of aeons. Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Macedonius, bp. of Constantinople, who had to a certain extent imbibed the opinions of Arius, certainly regarded the Son and the Spirit in much the same light in which the Gnostic teachers regarded their aeons. Yet Arius undoubtedly derived some support from the dangerous language of Origen, who had ventured to represent the Logos as a

δεύτερος (or δευτερεύων) θεός. Origen (see his de Principiis, I. ii. 6, 12) had also made use of expressions which favoured Arius's statement that the Logos was of a different substance to the Father, and that He owed His existence to the Father's will. But it is not sufficiently remembered that the speculations of Origen should be regarded as pioneer work in theology, and that they were often hazarded in order to stimulate further inquiry rather than to enable men to dispense with it. This explains why, in the Arian, as well as other controversies, the great authority of Origen is so frequently invoked by both sides.

The Christian church had by this time become so powerful a force in the Roman world that Constantine, now sole emperor, found himself unable to keep aloof from the controversy. He was the less able to do so in that he had himself been brought up under Christian influences. [&#8202;Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature to the End of the Sixth Century/Constantinus I..] He therefore sent the venerable Hosius, bp. of Cordova, a man who had suffered cruelly on behalf of his faith, on a mission to Egypt, with instructions to put an end, if possible, to the controversy. But as it continued to rage, Constantine took a step hitherto unprecedented in Roman history. Republican Rome of course had her free institutions, and the Christian church had been accustomed to determine matters of faith and practice in her local assemblies. But anything like a council of delegates, summoned from all parts of the empire, had been hitherto unknown. Such an assembly Constantine determined to call together. All the secular dioceses into which the empire had been for some time divided, Britain only excepted, sent one or more representatives to the council. The majority of the bishops came from the East, but there was, nevertheless, an imposing display of men of various races and languages. Sylvester of Rome, himself too aged to be present, sent two presbyters as his delegates. The object of the council, it must be remembered, was not to pronounce what the church ought to believe, but to ascertain as far as possible what had been taught from the beginning. It was indeed a remarkable gathering. There was not only as good a representation of race and nationality as was possible under the circumstances, but the ability and intellect of the church were also well represented. There was Eusebius of Nicomedia, the astute politician and man of the world. There was also the renowned Eusebius of Caesarea, a sound theologian, and perhaps the most well-informed, careful, impartial, and trustworthy ecclesiastical historian the church has ever possessed. Alexander, patriarch of Alexandria, was also a man of mark. And, young as he was, the great Athanasius was already a host in himself, from his clearness of insight into the deepest mysteries of our religion. And beside these there were men present who manifested the power of faith—the brave "confessors," as they were called, whose faces and limbs bore evident traces of the sufferings they had undergone for their Master. Nor could any one object that it was a packed assembly. The emperor did his best to secure an honest selection and an honest decision.

The council met (325) at Nicaea, in Bithynia, 