CHAPTER VII.

SYNODS OF AQUILEIA AND ROME.

A.D. 380-383.

ABOUT the end of 377 or the beginning of 378, Gratian, when on the eve of going eastwards to assist Valens in his troubles, had requested Ambrose to furnish him with some written instruction on the subject of the Nicene faith, which his stepmother, his uncle, and his uncle's Gothic enemies agreed in rejecting. Ambrose replied by sending him two books "On the Faith." The emperor returned the work, and was so pleased with it, that, after the load of government had been lightened by the elevation of Theodosius, he wrote a letter with his own hand to Ambrose, begging him to send him the volume. again, and also to visit him, and afford him more instruction. The teaching of Macedonius had rendered it needful that the Deity of God the Holy Ghost should be explained and proved, and Gratian was anxious to be enlightened on this point as well as on the special doctrine of the Council of Nicæa. Ambrose sent the two books "on the Faith" as requested, and subsequently added to them three more books, supplementing the two he had already produced on the coequal Deity of the eternal Son. To the emperor's letter he replied in the first—or at

least the first to which a definite date can be assigned -which we have of a long series extending to within a few months of his decease. The tone and diction of the bishop's letter are peculiar, and scarcely what we should expect from what we know of his character. They savour more of the courtly consular of Liguria than of the stern ascetic prelate of Milan. He excuses himself for not immediately resorting to the imperial presence, and asks to be permitted to defer the writing of the desired work, promising to set about it in process of time (we know that he had the three books "on the Faith" in hand); and ends with a flourish about glory and peace which would sound almost like a sarcasm were it not coupled with a benediction. The promise was fulfilled in less than two years. Early in 381 Gratian received the three books " on the Holy Ghost."

The results at once of this teaching and of the election of an orthodox bishop of Sirmium were speedily seen. Two Illyrian bishops, Palladius and Secundianus, were known to be of the party which declined to accept the Nicene creed; and their new metropolitan lost no time in bringing them to trial. A synod of bishops, from Illyricum, Gaul, and Italy, was summoned; and it is worthy of remark that it was convoked by the emperor's authority, his rescript, addressed apparently to the vicarius of each of the dioeceses, or civil departments, from which the members of the synod came, being formally read by a deacon at the opening of the synodical proceedings. By the advice of Ambrose, this document states, who thought it unnecessary to bring together a large number, the aged and infirm bishops, and those who were not

in good circumstances, were excused from attendance. The synod met at Aquileia on the 3rd September, 381. This city appears to have been chosen in preference to Milan, not only as being more central, but because there was less fear of such a tumult there as might easily have been excited in the metropolis of northern Italy. Thirty-three bishops took their seats, three of them, the bishops of Marseilles, Orange, and Lyons, being commissioners from Gaul, and two, Felix and Numidius, from Africa: two presbyters also took part in the council. The chair was taken (to use our own familiar expression) by Valerian, bishop of Aquileia; but the proceedings were conducted almost exclusively by the bishop of Milan.

Palladius demurred to the authority of the synod, and complained of the absence of the bishops of the East, who, he thought, would have taken his part; appealing to a full council, before which he professed himself ready to plead. But Ambrose disregarded all his excuses, and simply put to him the question, "Will you, or will you not, repudiate Arius and his errors?" To this question Palladius refused an answer. He entered, however, into a verbal contest with Ambrose, and one or two of the other bishops, in which he admitted that Christ is the Son of God, and spoke of His "divinity," but declined to admit Him to be true God, or to speak of Him as equal to the Father. His companion Secundianus tried a little skirmish, but in vain. After a sitting which lasted from early morning till I p.m., both were, as we might expect, condemned by a unanimous vote, together with a presbyter named Attalus, who, after signing at Nicæa, had fallen away from the faith.

The decision of the synod was announced in a short letter to the churches of Gaul, and in a longer one to the three emperors (Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius), in which the members of the synod thank them for convening it, and beg them to carry out its decrees. They also request that the Photinians in Sirmium may be prevented from holding meetings.

We are struck with the unqualified manner in which this letter to Valentinian (now ten years old) denounces the religion which his mother was teaching him. This synodical was followed by a second, denouncing Ursinus, the old opponent of Damasus, now Bishop of Rome; and a third, requesting that a council. might be held at Alexandria to put down the Arians.

The Aquileian synod was not the only one that met in the year 381. Theodosius, immediately after his baptism in 380 by the hand of Ambrose's dear friend Ascholius, bishop of Thessalonica, began to take steps to check the progress of Arianism. He banished the principal adherents of that heresy, with Demophilus, the Arian bishop of Constantinople, at their head; and with the approval of a number of bishops invited the great Gregory of Nazianzus to fill the vacant post. For some reason or other,2 this eminent man had been first appointed by his metropolitan St. Basil to the obscure see of Sasima, and then placed in his father's almost equally obscure see of Nazianzus: his translation to the primacy of the East

1 Or Acholius: the name is variously written.

2 Some imagine that Basil was jealous of Gregory; but it seems that Gregory was placed at Sasima by his own desire, in order that he might be better able to help Basil against the ambitious semi-Arian, Anthimus of Tyana.

was objected to on the ground of its being contrary to an ancient canon that a bishop should be removed from one diocese to another. In the year 380, however, Gregory was Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople, though he shortly afterwards retired to Nazianzus. In May of the year 381 Theodosius summoned the Eastern bishops to meet at the capital, and deal with the Arian and other Church questions; especially the heresy of Macedonius, the deposed predecessor of Demophilus, who denied the personal Deity of the Holy Ghost. This synod is reckoned as the second of the Ecumenical Councils, its determinations having been accepted and endorsed by the whole Church, although the 150 prelates who composed it belonged to the eastern portion of the empire.

A large assembly of western bishops met at Rome in the next year (382) in a synod, which was attended, among others, by the celebrated St. Jerome, and formally proposed that a council should be held at Rome. This scheme had already been pressed, in a less formal way, on Theodosius in two letters from the Italian bishops; and it appears that Ambrose was the leading spirit among them. In the earlier of the two documents the Italians show themselves to be labouring under a strange misconception of the state of Church politics at Constantinople. They are ready to give up Gregory Nazianzen, and incline to take the part of Maximus, the Apollinarian heretic, against the orthodox Nectarius, who had been chosen to fill the high post from which the gentle and peace-loving Gregory had determined to retire. They fancy the consecration of Nectarius to have been irregular. As