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| Of the Council at Sardica.
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Chapter XX.—Of the
Council at Sardica.305
| 305Cf. Sozom. III. 11; Theodoret, H. E. II. 7;
also Hefele, Hist. of the Church Councils, Vol. II. p.
87–176.
|
The Western prelates on account
of their being of another language, and not understanding this
exposition, would not admit of it; saying that the Nicene Creed was
sufficient, and that they would not waste time on anything beyond it.
But when the emperor had again written to insist on the restoration to
Paul and Athanasius of their respective sees, but without effect in
consequence of the continual agitation of the people—these two
bishops demanded that another Synod should be convened, so that their case, as well as other questions in
relation to the faith might be settled by an ecumenical council, for
they made it obvious that their deposition arose from no other cause
than that the faith might be the more easily perverted. Another general
council was therefore summoned to meet at Sardica,—a city of
Illyricum,—by the joint authority of the two emperors; the one
requesting by letter that it might be so, and the other, of the East,
readily acquiescing in it. It was the eleventh year after the death of
the father of the two Augusti, during the consulship of Rufinus and
Eusebius,306
that the Synod of Sardica met. According to the statement of
Athanasius307
| 307Athanasius’ statement is that those who were
present at the Council of Sardica, together with those who afterwards
subscribed the Synodical Epistle sent to them and those who before the
council had written in his behalf out of Phrygia, Asia, and Isauria,
were in all about three hundred and forty. So in his Apol. contra
Arianos, c. 50. In his Ep. ad Solitar. c. 15, he gives the
number of those who met at Sardica as about one hundred and
seventy,—no more.
|
about 300 bishops from the western parts of the empire were present;
but Sabinus says there came only seventy from the eastern parts, among
whom was Ischyras of Mareotes,308
who had been ordained bishop of that country by those who deposed
Athanasius. Of the rest, some pretended infirmity of body; others
complained of the shortness of the notice given, casting the blame of
it on Julius, bishop of Rome, although a year and a half had elapsed
from the time of its having been summoned: in which interval Athanasius
remained at Rome awaiting the assembling of the Synod. When at last
they were convened at Sardica, the Eastern prelates refused either to
meet or to enter into any conference with those of the West, unless
they first excluded Athanasius and Paul from the convention. But as
Protogenes, bishop of Sardica, and Hosius, bishop of Cordova, a city in
Spain, would by no means permit them to be absent, the Eastern bishops
immediately withdrew, and returning to Philippopolis in Thrace, held a
separate council, wherein they openly anathematized the term
homoousios; and having introduced the Anomoian309
| 309ἀνομοίου,
‘different,’ ‘unlike.’
|
opinion into their epistles, they sent them in all directions. On the
other hand those who remained at Sardica, condemning in the first place
their departure, afterwards divested the accusers of Athanasius of
their dignity; then confirming the Nicene Creed, and rejecting the term
anomoion, they more distinctly recognized the doctrine of
consubstantiality, which they also inserted in epistles addressed to
all the churches. Both parties believed they had acted rightly: those
of the East, because the Western bishops had countenanced those whom
they had deposed; and these again, in consequence not only of the
retirement of those who had deposed them before the matter had been
examined into, but also because they themselves were the defenders of
the Nicene faith, which the other party had dared to adulterate. They
therefore restored to Paul and Athanasius their sees, and also
Marcellus of Ancyra in Lesser Galatia, who had been deposed long
before, as we have stated in the former book.310
At that time indeed he exerted himself to the utmost to procure the
revocation of the sentence pronounced against him, declaring that his
being suspected of entertaining the error of Paul of Samosata arose
from a misunderstanding of some expressions in his book. It must,
however, be noticed that Eusebius Pamphilus wrote three entire books
against Marcellus,311
| 311There are two works of Eusebius extant against
Marcellus. The one described here is de Ecclesiastica Theologia
adversus Marcellum, in three books; the other is entitled contra
Marcellum, and consists of two books. As there is no mention of the
latter, it is doubtful whether Socrates had ever seen them. At the end
of the second book, Eusebius asserts that he had written at the request
of the bishops who had excommunicated Marcellus.
|
in which he quotes that author’s own words to prove that he
asserts with Sabellius the Libyan, and Paul of Samosata, that the Lord
[Jesus] was a mere man.
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