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By Archibald Robertson.
St Athanasius the Great Resources Online and in Print
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128 Pages (Part I)
Page 64
The expulsion of a powerful bishop from the midst of a loyal flock was greatly assisted by the co-operation of a friendly mob; and Jews (pp. 94, 296), and heathen alike were willing to aid the Arian cause. The army, the civil service, education, the life of society were still largely heathen; the inevitable influx of heathen into the Church, now that the empire had become Christian, brought with it multitudes to whom Arianism was a more intelligible creed than that of Nicaea; the influence of the philosophers was a serious factor, they might well welcome Arianism as a 'Selbstersetzung des Christentums.' This is not inconsistent with the instances of persecution of heathenism by Arian bishops, and of savage heathen reprisals, associated with the names of George of Alexandria, Patrophilus, Mark of Arethusa, and others. (For a fuller discussion, with references, see Gwatkin, pp. 53-59.)
(3.) The Ecclesiastical Conservatives. Something has already been said in more than one connection to explain how it came to pass that the very provinces whose bishops made up the large numerical majority at Nicaea, also furnished the numbers which swelled the ranks of the Eusebians at Tyre, Antioch, and Philippopolis. The actual men were, of course, in many cases [37] changed in the course of years, but the sees were the same, and there is ample evidence that the staunch Nicene party were in a hopeless minority in Asia Minor [38] and but little stronger in Syria. The indefiniteness of this mass of episcopal opinion justifies the title 'Conservative.' In adopting it freely, we must not forget, what the whole foregoing account has gone to shew, that their conservatism was of the empirical or short-sighted kind, prone to acquiesce in things as they are, hard to arouse to a sense of a great crisis, reluctant to step out of its groove.
[37] Alexander of Thessalonica had been at Nicaea, Dianius of Caes. Capp. had not. The two are typical of the better sort of conservatives.
[38] For Asia besides Marcellus we have only Diodorus of Tenedos, not at Nicaea, but expelled soon after 330, p. 271; signs at Sardica, p. 147, banished again p. 276, not in D.C.B.; for Syria the names p. 271, cf. p. 256.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/athanasius/athanasius-life-arianism.asp?pg=64
