PROLEGOMENA, CHAPTER II., § 3 (1).

Constantine was at the critical moment on behalf of the test (see below, and Ep. Eus. p. 75). The word was commended to the Fathers by Constantine, but Constantine was ‘prompted’ by Hosius (Harnack, Dogmg. ii. 226); original: "οὗτος τὴν ἐν Νικαίᾳ πίστιν ἐξέθετο" he set forth the faith at Nicaea (infr. p. 285, § 42). Alexander (the Origenist) had been prepared for this by Hosius beforehand (Soc. iii. 7; Philost. i. 7; cf. Zahn Marcell. p. 23, and Harnack’s important note, p. 229). Least of all was Athanasius the author of the ὁμοούσιον original: "homoousion" (of the same substance); his whole attitude toward the famous test (infr. p. 303) is that of loyal acceptance and assimilation rather than of native inward affinity. ‘He was molded by the Nicene Creed, he did not mold it himself’ (Loofs, p. 134). The theological keynote of the council was struck by a small minority: Eustathius, Marcellus, perhaps Macarius, and the Westerns—above all, Hosius. The numbers were doubtless contributed by the Egyptian bishops who had condemned Arius in 321. The signatures, which seem partly incorrect, preserve a list of about 20. The party then which rallied round Alexander in formal opposition to the Arians may be put down at over thirty. ‘The men who best understood Arianism were most decided on the necessity of its formal condemnation.’ (Gwatkin.) To this compact and determined group the result of the council was due, and in their struggle they owed much—how much it is hard to determine—to the energy and eloquence of the deacon Athanasius, who had accompanied his bishop to the council as an indispensable companion (infr. p. 103; Soz. i. 17 fin.).

(3) Between the convinced Arians and their reasoned opponents lay the great mass of the bishops, 200 and more, nearly all from Syria and Asia Minor, who wished for nothing more than that they might hand on to those who came after them the faith they had received at baptism and had learned from their predecessors. These were the ‘conservatives,’ 3 A term first brought into currency in this connection by Mr. Gwatkin (p. 38, note), and since adopted by many writers including Harnack; in spite of the obvious objection to the importations of political terms into the grave questions of this period, the term is too useful to be surrendered, and the ‘conservatives’ of the Post-Nicene reaction were in fact too often political in their methods and spirit. The truly conservative men, here as in other instances, failed to enlist the sympathy of the conservative rank and file. or middle party, composed of all those who, for whatever reason, while untainted with Arianism, yet either failed to feel its urgent danger to the Church, or else failed to hold steadily in view the necessity of an adequate test if it was to be banished. Simple shepherds like Spyridion of Cyprus; men of the world who were more interested in their libelli original: "libelli" (petitions or written complaints) than in the magnitude of the doctrinal issue; theologians, a numerous class, ‘who on the basis of half-understood Origenist ideas were prepared to recognize in Christ only the Mediator appointed (no doubt before all ages) between God and the World’ (Zahn Marc. p. 30); men who in the best of faith yet failed from lack of intellectual clearsightedness to grasp the question for themselves; a few, possibly, who were inclined to think that Arius was hardly used and might be right after all; such were the main elements which made up the mass of the council, and upon whose indefiniteness, sympathy, or unwillingness to impose an effective test, the Arian party based their hopes, at any rate of toleration.

Spokesman and leader of the middle party was the most learned Churchman of the age, Eusebius of Cæsarea. A devoted admirer of Origen, but independent of the school of Lucian, he had, during the early stages of the controversy, thrown his weight on the side of toleration for Arius. He had himself used compromising language, and in his letter to the Cæsarean Church (infra, p. 76 sq.) does so again. But equally strong language can be cited from him on the other side. Belonging as he does properly to the pre-Nicene age, it is highly invidious to make the most of his Arianizing passages while ignoring or explaining away those on the other side, and depreciating his splendid and lasting services to Christian learning, merely to class him summarily with his namesake of Nicomedia. 4 The identity of name has certainly done Eusebius no good with posterity. But no one with a spark of generosity can fail to be moved by the appeal of Socrates (ii. 21) for common fairness toward the dead. (See Prolegg. to vol. 1 of this series, and above all the article in D.C.B.) The fact, however, remains that Eusebius gave something more than moral support to the Arians. He was ‘neither a great man nor a clear thinker’ (Gwatkin); his own theology was hazy and involved. As an Origenist, his main dread was of Monarchianism, and his policy in the council was to stave off at least such a condemnation of Arianism as should open the door to ‘confounding the Persons.’ Eusebius apparently represents the ‘left wing,’ or the last mentioned of the ‘conservative’ elements in the council (supra, and Gwatkin, p. 38); but his learning, age, position, and the ascendency of Origenist Theology in the East marked him out as the leader of the whole.

But the ‘conservatism’ of the great mass of bishops rejected Arianism more promptly than had been expected by its adherents or patrons.

The real work of the council did not begin at once. The way was blocked by innumerable applications to the Christian Emperor from bishops and clergy, mainly for the redress of personal grievances. Commonplace men often fail to see the proportion of things and to rise to the magnitude of the events in which they play their part.