pointment was his inducement, nevertheless the ground he assumed was the truth, and was supported by ample proofs; it is also very clear that the opposition which prevailed against him, was not because he was an Arian, but because he espoused a plan of reform, which ecclesiastical policy could not tolerate. Had he only borne his testimony against the clerical abuses of his day, and not actually withdrawn from the hierarchy, he might have escaped persecution. Then ceasing to be an object of odium, he would have dropped into oblivion, the common receptacle of the names of thousands, who have succumbed unto, or perished in opposing the ecclesiastical tyranny of the ages in which they lived, preferring a good conscience and poverty of spirit, characteristics of the saints, to the worldly policy, and personal aggrandizement of the haughty successors of the despised fishermen of Galilee, • Hooker's justification (Eccles. pol. iii. 130.) of the sentence against Aerius on account of "his fault in condemning the order of the church, and his not submitting himself unto that order," is predicated upon, either the infallibility of the church, or her authority by which she can sanctify error. If a "madman," [Maviwdns, Epiph.] his madness lay in following the Scriptures, and the first government of the churches; for as Stillingfleet observes (Irenicum 276,) "upon the strictest inquiry Medinas' judgment will prove true, that Jerom, Augustine, Ambrose, Sudulius, Primasius, Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theoplylact were all of Aerius's judg ment as to the identity of both the name and order of bishops, and presbyters, in the primitive church." When Potter unjustly infers from the same facts, (Church Gov. p. 193,) that, "it was the received opinion in that age, that the order of bishops was superior to that of presbyters;" he should rather have said, that such superiority was, in that age, the law of the church established against the truth, and the word of God. For the crime imputed to Aerius, appears neither to have been error nor false doctrine, but schism; a sin for which the church adjudges the minority in every ecclesiastical separation punishable; and the civil law, that party "which opposes itself to the religion of the state;" in the view of each, propriety of motives, and accordance of doctrines and discipline with the word of God, are so far from justifying, that the allegation has been in every other case, as well as that of the "madness" of Aerius, a confession of guilt. SECTION XIV. Basil the Great; his advantages of education; succeeded Athanasius as head of the orthodox against the Arians.-Like him, he exercised the clerical power gained by the canons.—He knew that a presbyter was originally the highest ordinary officer.—Gregory of Nazianzum complained of ecclesiastical distinctions as innovations, and shunned the convocations of bishops as causes of evil, and attributes their consecrations to a love of superiority,Gregory of Nyssa was the brother of Basil, and accounted all who presided in the church to be presbyters: BASIL the Great, was a native of Cæsarea, in Cappadocia. Born about three years after the council of Nice, he received the advantages of an education at Constantinople and Athens, as well as at Antioch in Syria. The same instructions matured Basil and Julian for their different spheres in life. Basil became a presbyter, and whilst such, was elected metropolitan ; this being then deemed the order of advancement." An ornament of the church, in eloquence he was second to no one.d Left by the death of Athanasius at the head of the orthodox party, when Arianism possessing the government, reigned without mercy, his firmness of faith and intrepidity of conduct, overcame the pusillanimous Valens, and proved of signal advantage to the cause. He presided through the short but stormy period of about nine years, and died, A. D. 378. Placed at first over a numerous synod of bishops, he soon witnessed the dismemberment of his charge. Five provinces arose out of Cappadocia. Canonical was the offspring of civil power, and was a Socrat. Schol. lib. iv. c. 21. Greg. Naz. Oper. vol. i, p. 785. 5 Την ταξιν του βηματος. Ibid. 336. • Της εκκλησίας ο κοσμος βασιλειος. Photius, 890. d Ouderos deursgos. Idem. 378. obliged, as yet, reasonably to succumb to it. Nyssa, the charge of Gregory, his brother, remained; but Nazianzum, of the other Gregory, was assigned to Cappadocia tertia. Basil, who could deny himself every thing but ecclesiastical power, in a letter to Amphilochius, the metropolitan of Lycaonia, relative to churches which could be claimed by neither of them, says: "You yourself know, that of whatsoever sort they who preside are, of the same kind will the habits of those who are governed generally be. Wherefore, it is perhaps better that some approved person, if it be possible, be appointed to the government of the city, and allowed to manage all concerns upon his own responsibility; only, if possible, let him be a servant of God, a workman not to be ashamed, not looking after his own things, but those of the many, that they may be saved." Over the small cities and little villages, instead of a bishop's seat, which they formerly respectively had, he thought there should be placed agorausvo, presiding clergy, and over the chief city a bishop; so that Isaurus, a seat of Arianism, might be girded around, and that Basil and Amphilochius should afterwards ordain bishops as circumstances might require. Such were the ambitious views and artful contrivances of one of the most pious, eloquent, and learned metropolitans in the latter part of the fourth century, communicated to another of the same rank, who was, no doubt, also of the same mind. Zeal against heresy was their plausible apology, thirst for domination the secret spring, and the canons of the council of Nice the basis of that authority, and the rule of its exercise, which they claimed and exerted in opposition to the word of God, and the express command of the head of the church, who had interdicted the claim of lordship over his servants. In his commentary upon Isaiah iii. 2, on the word "ancient" (ipt elder) he observes: "Among the things e Basil, vol. iii. p. 422. that are threatened, is also the removal of the elder, secing that the advantage of his presence is not small. An elder is he, who is dignified with the first seat, and enrolled in the presbytery, bearing the character of a presbyter; especially, indeed, if he be an unmarried man, or if even, according to the law of the Lord, the husband of one wife, having faithful children, not accused of riot, or unruly, he being not self-willed, not soon angry, neither given to wine, nor filthy lucre, but a lover of hospitality, and of the good; sober, holy, just, temperate; holding fast the faithful word according to doctrine, that he may be able, by sound instruction, both to exhort and to convince gainsayers; this is the elder whom the Lord will take away from a sinful people." This elucidation of the character of a Jewish elder, in the words of Paul's description of a Christian bishop, evinces that Basil knew that in the days of the apostles the office was the same. The eloquent metropolitan, perceiving that the terms presbyter and bishop had been promiscuously used in the direction given to Titus, drops the latter name, and attributes the characteristics enumerated with both to the presbyter, that he might suitably represent the magnitude of the calamity expressed in the prophetic denunciation. Few in his day enjoyed or more valued clerical preferment; but its canonical origination, yet inchoate, was then so far from being a matter of concealment, that it was the vaunted basis of pre-eminence and power. The testimony of this bishop of bishops is a candid confession, that, at the first, the occupant of the highest seat in a church was a presbyter, and that such were instructed in sound doctrine, and able to exhort and convince. This proof does not even surmise the existence of presbyters of different kinds, and is, therefore, in utter exclusion of those of the imaginary inferior grade. In his "Morals," he classes together in one chap f Titus i. 6-9. 8 Basil, tom. ii. p. 96. ter, directed to the same object, the Scriptural character and duties of bishops and presbyters, taken from the epistles to Timothy and Titus, and places them under the title of "What things are said conjunctly concerning bishops and presbyters."h The next chapter has the title, "Concerning deacons," and details their first appointment from the acts of the apostles, and some of their moral qualifications from the epistle to Titus. Thus he discovers his opinion, that there are mentioned in those Scriptures but two offices, presbyters or bishops, and deacons. Had there been known in his day the supposed intermediate office of mute presbyters, some intimation of them on this occasion might have been expected. But the silence of non-existence then reigned on the subject of an order in the church of which no one had conceived an idea. Gregory, bishop of Nazianzum, the son of the first of the name and office, was the friend and companion of Basil the Great, and was affirmed, but with doubtful probability, to have been his senior. He studied in Palestine, at Alexandria, and afterward at Athens. Notwithstanding the preference attributed by Photius to Basil, the writings of no Christian father exhibit more the luxuriance of imagery, and charms of eloquence, than do those of this Gregory. Sasima, over which he was at first appointed bishop, would be deemed, in our day, an impoverished parish. His complaints were removed, but his sphere was still limited, when, after his father's death, he was chosen bishop of Nazianzum. He went to Constantinople, A. D. 376, and four years afterwards was placed by Theodosius in the great church of that city, instead of Demophilus, who had been ejected for Arian prin 1. Όσα κατά συνάφειαν είρηται περι επισκοπων και πρεσβυτέρων. Basil, tom. ii. 491. · Περι διακόνων. Ibid. k Gregorius primum Sasimorum deinde Nazienzenus episcopus vir eloquentissimus præceptor meus. Jerom. vol. i. cap. 117. |