Life of St Athanasius the Great and Account of Arianism

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128 Pages (Part I)

Page 4

2. The Arian Controversy before Nicaea, 319-325.

At the time when Athanasius first appeared as an author, the condition of Christian Egypt was not peaceful. Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis, was accused of having sacrificed during the persecution in 301 (pp. 131, 234); condemned by a synod under bishop Peter, he had carried on schismatical intrigues under Peter, Achillas, and Alexander, and by this time had a large following, especially in Upper Egypt. Many cities had Meletian bishops: many of the hermits, and even communities of monks (p. 135), were on his side.

The Meletian account of the matter (preserved by Epiphan. Haer. 58) was different from this. Meletius had been in prison along with Peter, and had differed from him on the question of the lapsed, taking the sterner view, in which most of the imprisoned clergy supported him. It would not be without a parallel (D.C.B. art. Donatists, Novatian) in the history of the burning question of the lapsi to suppose that Meletius recoiled from a compromised position to the advocacy of impossible strictness. At any rate (de Incarn. 24. 4) the Egyptian Church was rent by a formidable schism. No doctrinal question, however, was involved. The alliance of Meletians and Arians belongs to a later date.

It is doubtful whether the outbreak of the Arian controversy at Alexandria was directly connected with the previous Christological controversies in the same Church. The great Dionysius some half-century before had been involved in controversy with members of his Church both in Alexandria and in the suffragan dioceses of Libya (infr. p. 173). Of the sequel of that controversy we have no direct knowledge: but we find several bishops and numerous clergy and laity in Alexandria and Libya [4] ready to side with Arius against his bishop.

[4] It is of interest to note the changed conditions. In 260 bishop Dionysius had to check the Monarchian tendency in Libya, and was accused by members of his own flock of separating the Son from the Being (ousia) of the Father. In 319 a Libyan, Arius, cries out upon the Sabellianism of his bishop, and formulates the very doctrine which Dionysius had been accused of maintaining.

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