Apocryphal New Testament — Historical English Collection

Apocryphal New Testament — Hone/Wake/Jones — Section 3

all bishops, in wliicli he represents Arius and his partisans as heretics, apostates, blasphemous enemies of God, full of impudence and impiety, forerunners of Antichrist, imitators of Judas, and men whom it was not lawful to salute, or to bid God-speed. There is no reason to doubt of the "probity and sincerity of those who opposed Alexander and the Nicene Fathers; for what did they get by it besides obloquy and banishment ? Many good men were engaged on both sides of the controversy. So it was in the fourth century, and so it hath been ever since. Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Eusebius the historian, endeavoured to pacify Alexander, and to persuade him to make up the quarrel ; and Con- stantino sent a letter by the illustrious Hosius of Corduba to Alexander and Arius, in which he reprimanded them both for disturbing the church with their insignificant dis- putes. But the affair was gone too far to be thus composed, and Socrates represents both sides as equally contentious and refractory. To settle this and other points, the Nicene council was summoned, consisting of about three hundred and eighteen bishops, — a mystical number* of which many profound remarks have been made. The first thing they did was to quarrel, and to express their resentments, and to present accusations to the emperor against one another. So say Socrates, Sozomen, and Eufinus. Theodoret favours his brethren in this affair, and seems to throw the fault upon the laity. But the whole story, as it is related by them all, and even by Theodoret, shows that the bishops accused one another. The emperor burnt all their libels, * Barnabas, viii. 1.1, 12, 13. and exhorted them to peace and unity ; so that if they had not been restrained by his authority, and by fear and respect, they 'would probably have spent their time in altercations.