[Sidenote:  Arian evasions.]

Yet what escape was possible?  Scripture can be used as a test if its authority is called in question, but not when its meaning is disputed.  If the Arians were to be excluded, it was useless to put into the creed the very words whose plain meaning they were charged with evading.  Athanasius gives an interesting account of this stage of the debate.  It appears that when the bishops collected phrases from Scripture and set down that the Son is ‘of God,’ those wicked Arians said to each other, ’We can sign that, for we ourselves also are of God.  Is it not written, All things are of God?’[8] So when the bishops saw their impious ingenuity, they put it more clearly, that the Son is not only of God like the creatures, but of the essence of God.  And this was the reason why the word ‘essence’ was put into the creed.  Again, the Arians were asked if they would confess that the Son is not a creature, but the power and eternal image of the Father and true God.  Instead of giving a straightforward answer, they were caught whispering to each other.  ’This is true of ourselves, for we men are called the image and glory of God.[9] We too are eternal, for we who live are always.[10] And powers of God are many.  Is He not the Lord of powers (hosts)?  The locust and the caterpillar are actually “my great power which I sent among you."[11] He is true God also, for he became true God as soon as he was created.’  These were the evasions which compelled the bishops to sum up the sense of Scripture in the statement that the Son is of one essence with the Father.

[Footnote 8:  1 Cor. viii. 6.]

[Footnote 9:  1 Cor. xi. 7.]

[Footnote 10:  2 Cor. iv. 11; the impudence of the quotation is worth notice.]

[Footnote 11:  Joel ii. 25 (army).]

[Sidenote:  Acceptance of the creed.]

So far Athanasius.  The longer the debate went on, the clearer it became that the meaning of Scripture could not be defined without going outside Scripture for words to define it.  In the end, they all signed except a few.  Many, however, signed with misgivings, and some almost avowedly as a formality to please the Emperor.  ’The soul is none the worse for a little ink.’  It is not a pleasant scene for the historian.

[Sidenote:  The letter of Eusebius.]

Eusebius of Caesarea was sorely disappointed.  Instead of giving a creed to Christendom, he received back his confession in a form which at first he could not sign at all.  There was some ground for his complaint that, under pretence of inserting the single word of one essence, which our wise and godly Emperor so admirably explained, the bishops had in effect drawn up a composition of their own.  It was a venerable document of stainless orthodoxy, and they had laid rude hands on almost every clause of it.  Instead of a confession which secured the assent of all parties by deciding nothing, they forced on him a stringent condemnation, not indeed of his