months ago you and I should have been so blinded and deceived about all this. When I look back on my former belief it all seems like a weird dream.

“But to return to the council. Among the clericals in attendance was an oily-tongued young zealot about twentysix years old, a deacon of the church at Alexandria, named Athanasius. He undertook to refute the heresies of Arius, and so ably and persuasively did he set forth the 'true faith' that he at once forged to the front rank among the defenders and expounders of orthodox' Christian doctrine. The so-called Nicene Creed which was accepted and adopted by the council as a settlement of the question in dispute, is doubtless to be credited mainly to young Athanasius. This statement of belief merits close examination as the first formal effort of a great and representative assembly of Christian leaders to harmonize, epitomize, and crystallize Christian doctrine, after the alleged teachings of Jesus had been operating on the minds of men for some three hundred years. It is certainly not unfair to ask what adequate explanation can be given, viewing the matter from the orthodox standpoint, of the failure of the church to formulate an authoritative statement of belief during these long centuries, when the Christian world was full of contradictory teachings; and furthermore, what adequate reason can be given why this immeasurably important and responsible task of formulating such a statement should have been at last committed to this particular body of coarse and cringing creatures'? Let me read you the Nicene Creed, the statement that these 'creatures' produced:

"We believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of all things both visible and invisible; and in the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, begotten of the Father, only begotten, that is to say, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, both things in heaven and things on earth, who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh, made man, suffered and rose again on the third day, went up into the heavens, and is to come again to judge the living and the dead; and in the Holy Ghost.'

"That was the creed, the belief; and you see that it is profoundly silent upon the fundamental question that had convulsed the Christian world-the question whether a son can be as old as his father. That question, however, was

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settled in another way. To the above 'orthodox' statement of belief, the council tacked on the following curse, not to be found in the popular editions of the creed in these later days:

"The Holy Catholic and Apostolic church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is created, or changeable, or alterable.'

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This," continued Granger, seems to cover the whole ground-a good healthy all-round curse, three times as big as that levied by the former council at Alexandria, if the size of the councils is to be taken as a measure. We shall see whether the curse of the three hundred bishops at Nicea was more potent than that of the one hundred at Alexandria. But first I want you to notice that while the Nicene Creed and the so-called Apostles' Creed are in the main similar, there are marked and important differences. The Nicene Creed did not declare the miraculous conception, or resurrection of the body, or send Jesus down into hell. The Apostles' Creed is believed to have taken form in the fifth century; although a theological fiction analogous to that which credits the fourth Gospel to John, has it that the clauses of the Apostles' Creed were severally contributed by the traditional twelve Apostles of Jesus. Let me read the Apostles' Creed for the purpose of comparison:

"I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his Son, our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into Hell; the third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into Heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.'

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You can judge for yourself of the relative value of the two creeds, as well as of their consistency. We are not quite through with this matter of creeds, but let's turn back to the Nicene council.

When the twin-decision-creed and curse-of the council was laid before Constantine, he 'at once recognized in the unanimous consent of the bishops the work of God, and received it with reverence, declaring that all persons should

be banished who refused to submit to it,' and making the teaching of Arianism'a capital offense.' This reference to ' unanimous consent' does not appear to have been made with sarcastic intent. The orthodox accounts of all these early church squabbles are full of such little guileless touches that to the unpracticed eye would seem like keen flashes of satire. Remembering Constantine's disgust' for these 'coarse and cringing creatures' of the council, we may perhaps be permitted to doubt the sincerity of his alleged reverence' for their work; but policy dictated its ratification. Arius and five of his supporters, among them Eusebius of Nicomedia, were banished. The rest of the Arians, including Eusebius of Cæsarea, went over to the majority and helped to swell the 'unanimous consent' by denouncing what they had lately preached.

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And now comes the sequel. Through the intercession of Constantia and other Arians, Arius and Eusebius were recalled from banishment, and Eusebius was restored to his see of Nicomedia. By the Emperor's order Arius submitted a written confession of faith, which the Emperor-whose ‘reverence' for the council's work appears to have weakened -pronounced orthodox. But Athanasius, now bishop of Alexandria, still refused to admit Arius to communion. Thereupon Arius signed the Nicene creed, and the Emperor ordered the bishop of Constantinople to admit Arius to communion. But the sudden and mysterious death of Arius with suspicion of poisoning-the day before he was to receive the eucharist, in 336, brought this phase of the controversy to an end.

"Meantime Constantine had banished Athanasius on charge of conspiracy; probably a false charge, brought in order to enable Constantine to get Athanasius out of the way. Constantine died in 337, and Athanasius was recalled the next year, but was banished and recalled no less than three times thereafter.

"Constantine had steadily refused Christian baptism till just before his death, when he permitted the rite to be performed by whom? by Bishop Eusebius, the great Arian heretic, 'the leader and organizer of the Arian party.' Why did Constantine so long delay the important rite of baptism? Let Draper tell us:

"Since complete purification can thus be only once obtained, he was desirous to procrastinate that ceremony to the last moment.

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Profoundly politic, even in his relations with heaven, he thenceforth reclined on a white bed, took no farther part in worldly affairs, and having thus insured a right to the continuance of that prosperity in a future life which he had enjoyed in this, expired.'

"Constantine in banishing Arius was guilty of the first civil punishment of heresy, the first step on the road to the 'Holy Roman Inquisition,' with its barbarous tortures, more infamous than anything recorded in pagan annals.

"But that was not the end of Arianism. Even the Papal chair was for a while desecrated by heresy,' Pope Felix II being an Arian. For thirty or forty years after the death of Constantine the Arians enjoyed the favor of the Roman Emperors. A council of bishops at Antioch-close upon Palestine again, you see-in 341 adopted a formulary comprising Arian views, and deposed Athanasius; and the Emperor Constantius, an Arian like his father Constantine, was present at the council.

"The greatness of Athanasius,' says the Schaff-Herzog work, is his unswerving fidelity to the idea of his lifehis idea that a son can be as old as his father; from which idea, to quote Schaff-Herzog again,' starts the whole speculative development of the Trinity and the Christology." The 'greatness' of Athanasius-the great orthodox theological name in that age when church and state first united to persecute for opinion's sake-has been recognized by the church by writing his name in the calendar of saints, and according him lofty distinction as the 'Father of Orthodoxy '; while Arius lives in Christian memory as a subtle and dangerous heretic, an enemy of God and man, and his followers have met church curse and persecution. Such is the difference between orthodoxy and heresy: such, too, the 'ideas,' such the elements of 'greatness' and 'unswerving fidelity' to which nineteenth century orthodox doctors of divinity and doctors of laws bow their heads; and such the men whom learned theological professors point out to young ministers as worthy examples of true Christian 'greatness. Do you believe that Jesus would agree with the church and the doctors of divinity in this?

"You now see how and why the church began its creedmaking-not as a spontaneous, divinely inspired act, under guidance of the Holy Ghost, for the purpose of reducing to forms of human speech a God-given system of faith; but in pursuance of a political scheme of an insincere but

broad-minded and far-seeing Roman Emperor to prop his throne. Personally Constantine preferred the Arian views, as we might expect any man of sense to do; but what he wanted above all, and what he was bound to have, was an agreement. The bishops understood this fully. They must agree upon something. That was what they were there for, and what their expenses had been paid out of the national treasury for. And agree they did, 'unanimously '—after the majority had terrorized the weak-kneed members of the minority, and expelled the rest; and all this under the eye and spur of the crafty, cruel, treacherous, half-Christian, half-pagan Constantine, 'the first of the Christian Emperors,' the godfather of orthodoxy.

"The chief importance of all this, however, is that it shows us how wide was the disagreement at that time as to what particular theory of Jesus's nature was the true one, and that it was by persecution that the now orthodox tenet was established. Knowing the facts as I have tried to relate them to you, and approaching the consideration of them in a reasonable frame of mind, can we reach any other conclusion than that the creed put forth by the council of Nice has no more claim to our belief than any other religious or political 'platform'? Do we not clearly see that the creed derives from the mere fact of its adoption by that council no authority whatever to bind our reason?"

CHAPTER 27

MORE HERESY-HUNTING—AUGUSTINE, THE GREATEST OF THE CHURCH FATHERS

"It will not take us long," said Granger, when the discussion was next resumed, "to glance at the second and third councils and the career of Agustine. The fourth council will demand more time. The history of the second great ecumenical council, at Constantinople, is wrapped in considerable gloom. But we will follow the orthodox accounts, as probably most favorable to the action of the council and least likely to lead us to unjust adverse conclusions. We will therefore assume that the council was held in 381, and was called by the Emperor Theodosius