THE AGE OF THE FATHERS.*
THERE are but very few men, we imagine, who could adequately estimate the profundity and extent of the learning which has been used in the putting together of these two volumes. The subject was in a peculiar sense Dr. Blight's own. A large part of his thirty-seven years of professorial work in the Chair of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford was given to it. As Dr. Lock, who has seen these volumes through the press, reminds us, he dealt with it in the first of his published works; he never intermitted his study of it; he devoted to it, with a pathetic perseverance, the last remnants of his failing strength.
To the period of which Dr. Bright treats in these volumes he gives the title of the "Age of the Fathers." It is justified by the names of Athanasius, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Jerome. But it may also be called an Age of Councils. There must have been an average of nearly one for every year. It must be owned that the record of their proceedings is for the most part melancholy reading, tempting us to echo the words of Gregory of Nazianzum, who, writing, it must be remembered,
• The Age of the Fathers: Chapters in the History of the Church daring the 'Fourth and Fifth Centuries. By the late William Bright, D.D. 2 vols. London: Longman, and Co. [28s. net.] to a layman, declared that "he had never seen any good end to a Council, but rather an addition of more evil as its result."
The first great assembly that met after the Imperial recog- nition of Christianity was the Council of Arles, especially interesting to us, because three British Bishops, of York, London, and Lincoln, were present at it. The chief subject of its debates was one which belonged to the time. The memories of the days of persecution were still fresh throughout the whole of Christendom, and the great question occupying men's- minds was,—how should the Church deal with those whose faith and courage had failed in the days of trial P. There were many degrees of such failure. About the worst offenders, the Lapsi, those who had blasphemed the name of Christ or offered sacrifice to pagan deities, there was little question. They were excluded from all office in the Church, and, for the most part, from Communion. It was round the Traditores, those who had surrendered copies of the Scriptures, that the real controversy ranged. Some had undoubtedly committed the offence; others had deceived the officials, giving up valueless or heretical writings ; the action of not a few had been doubt- ful. It was here that the Donatist schism had its rise, and it was, if possible, to bring this schism to an end that the Council of Arles was called together. The special ease dis- cussed was that of Caecilian. He had been elected to the See of Carthage, mainly, it would seem, by the unanimous voice of the laity. But he had many opponents. Charges of no great importance were made against him, but reliance was mainly placed on the fact that one of the Bishops who con- secrated him, Felix of Aplunga, had been accused of Traditio. A meeting of seventy Nnmidian Bishops decided the case against him, and consecrated a rival Bishop. A formal schism was begun, and neither the decision of the Bishops at Arles nor the active intervention of the Emperor Con- stantine availed to bring it to an end. It spread throughout the West; more than a century afterwards—in May, 417--- there were two hundred and seventy Donatist Bishops at the Conference of Carthage which was held in the hope of restoring peace. Peace was restored—in a way—but not by spiritual methods. The Emperor Honorius promulgated an Edict by which the Donatist clergy were banished, the laity fined, and the churches restored to the Catholics. The body was broken up, but not destroyed; nearly two centuries later it was still formidable.
It is not always easy to remember that Donatism, with all its narrowness and ferocity, was a struggle for an ideal of purity; it is not less difficult to bear in mind that the great battle of Creeds, which began, it may be said, with the Council of Nicaea, was a struggle for an ideal of truth. The disputes which once raged round the central truth of the Incarnation of the Son of God have in a great measure ceased to interest even the devout •Christian. Few laymen, except they happened to be fresh from a course of Church history, could define a Nestorian or a Monophysite, though both heresies are still represented by powerful bodies in the East; or could accurately distinguish between the Monothelite, Apollinarian, and Eutychian errors. Not a few preachers, especially in these days, when the extempore discourse is becoming more and more frequent, would fail to satisfy the rigorous tests which were commonly applied by the dogmatic experts of the fourth and fifth centuries. The Kenotic con- troversy is the one which still holds its ground. But divines of undoubted orthodoxy are decided Kenoticists. If they were to be summoned before a General Council—a most improbable contingency—they would be able to retort on their accusers with a charge of Apollinarianism. A consciousness to which divine knowledge was always present might easily be con- founded with the Apollinarian concept of a Nature in which the divine essence was as the rational soul. From this point of view, even the Athanasian Creed with its illustration of the " reasonable soul and flesh " is not unassailable. But these differences do not separate as they separated in the age which began with the Council of Nicaea. It is the anathemas, not the definitions, that are called in question, and every creed of the Age of Councils was fortified with anathemas. It would be ungrateful, however, to forget our indebtedness to the theologians whose labours brought about the settlement which leaves the Church free for the practical work of elevating the
world. That this was somewhat lost sight of when so much energy was spent on defining and defending the doctrinal standards cannot be denied. The war against heresies was waged with much bitterness and clamour ; meaner motives were at work along with zeal for truth ; but it had to be waged, and we enjoy the peace which it brought about. There will always be the radical distinction of thought that is expressed by the two terms "Unitarian" and " Trinitarian " ; but the subtle controversies which divided these opposing parties into sections beyond counting are at an end. Yet this peace cannot be said to be of long standing. One of the strangest stories which the historian of the fourth century has to tell is that of the "Hand of Arsenius." Arsenius had been consecrated as a Bishop among the followers of Meletius, who was probably
a heretic, and certainly schismatic. He was induced by his
patron, John Arcaph, Bishop of Memphis, to go into hiding, with the result, possibly intended, that a rumour spread of his having been murdered, and that by Athanasius. The Meletians said that Athanasius " got hold of him, killed him, and cut off his hand which he has used for magical purposes."
" Here," they went on, producing a hand from a wooden box, "is all that' we have been able to recover of our murdered Bishop." This extravagant story was brought up again and again, repeatedly disproved—Athanasius on one occasion actually produced the supposed victim—and as often revived. " The story," says Canon Bright, " is characteristic of the men and of the time." Yet if any one will take the pains to look into the theological tracts of Sir Isaac Newton, he will find this tale, which is as grotesque as it is horrible, repeated as if not unworthy of belief. But then Newton was an Arian or Semi-Arian, and the light which illumined the secrets of the universe could not penetrate the darkness of theological prejudice.
Nothing could exceed the unwearied patience with which Canon Bright investigates the story, often painful, almost always tedious, of the struggle which, composed, as it was hoped, by the decisions of Nicaea, was renewed time after time for a century and a quarter till the Council of Chalcedon established something like peace. The historian does not attempt to persuade his readers that the Councils, even when most respected—and Chalcedon stands high among them—were conducted with unfailing moderation and justice. He does not deny that time after time "lay officials interposed to secure some measure of fair play, not to say humane considerateness." His candour, and his readiness, which his editor notes as increasing in him as time went on, to credit even the opponents of Orthodoxy with an honest love of truth, add a value to his work not less than that which is given by his learning and his power of literary expression. They certainly increase the weight of a contention which he never fails to urge when an opportunity offers itself,—that the Roman claims of supremacy found no support in the period of Church history which he bad in a special way made his own. The Papal advocates will find their strength more than overtaxed to answer an opponent so learned and so honest.
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