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Updated: June 6, 2025
In this council the emperor left the cares of State, and the command of armies, to preside over discussions on the doctrine of the Trinity, as expounded by two great rival parties,—one headed by Athanasius, then archdeacon, afterward archbishop of Alexandria—the greatest theologian that had as yet appeared in the church,—and the other by Arius, a simple presbyter of Alexandria, but a man of subtle and commanding intellect.
The point of difficulty was to define the position of the Son in the Holy Trinity. Arius took the ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son.
He hoped to find an ally in Archibius, whose loyal devotion to the Queen he knew. Arius, Barine's uncle and Octavianus's former tutor, would also aid him. The most powerful support of his mission, however, could be rendered by the venerable chief priest, the head of the whole Egyptian hierarchy.
After the case of the Donatists had been settled by repeated councils, he spontaneously recalled them from banishment; after he had denounced Arius as "the very image of the Devil," he, through the influence of court females, received him again into favour; after the temple of Æsculapius at Ægæ had been demolished, and the doors and roofs of others removed, the pagans were half conciliated by perceiving that no steady care was taken to enforce the obnoxious decrees, and that, after all, the Christians would have to accept the declarations of the emperor for deeds.
Constantine, as we have seen, had looked upon the dispute, in the first instance, as altogether frivolous, if he did not, in truth, himself incline to the assertion of Arius, that, in the very nature of the thing, a father must be older than his son.
The disciple of Athanasius exulted in the proud confidence, that he had entitled himself to the divine favor; while the follower of Arius must have been tormented by the secret apprehension, that he was guilty, perhaps, of an unpardonable offence, by the scanty praise, and parsimonious honors, which he bestowed on the Judge of the World.
"And yet," cried Philostratus, "only the day before yesterday he walked arm in arm in the Paneum garden with Arius, the tutor of Octavianus, our own and our Queen's most hated foe. In my presence, and before I know not how many others, Didymus distinguished this Arius as his most beloved pupil."
However, one winter the Emperor invited Arius and his friend Euzoius to Constantinople, where they laid before him a short and simple confession of their faith. It said nothing of the disputed points, but was not unorthodox as far as it went. Nor were they bishops, that the Nicene creed should be forced upon them.
You know, child, that the Lord has said 'that in his Father's kingdom there are many mansions, and that in which Arius dwells is not mine; but it is in the Father's kingdom nevertheless. It cannot be so much amiss after all that you should cling to the creed of your parents. What is your name?" "Agne." "Agne, or the lamb. A pretty, good name!
Yet Arius could not be vexed with his sons for stigmatizing, in the harshest terms, the conduct of the man who had gone on without heeding the accident. He had cautioned his sister against the utterly unbridled youth whose father he had himself brought to her house. With what good reason he had raised his voice in warning was now evident.
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