How Arius Was Recalled and Received at Jerusalem

The bishops who had taken up the views of Arius found a good opportunity to restore him and Euzoius to communion, by working hard to have a council held in the city of Jerusalem. They carried out their plan in the following way. [a] A certain presbyter, a great admirer of the Arian teaching, was on close terms with the emperor’s sister. At first he hid his views. But he visited Constantia often (that was the name of Constantine’s sister) and little by little grew more familiar with her, until he took courage to tell her that Arius had been unjustly exiled from his country and cast out of the church through the jealousy and personal hostility of Alexander, the bishop of the church of Alexandria. Alexander’s jealousy, he said, had been stirred up by the esteem the people showed toward Arius.

Constantia believed what he told her was true, yet during her lifetime she did nothing to change the decrees of Nicaea. But when she was struck by an illness that looked as though it would end in her death, her brother came to visit her, and she begged him to grant, as a last favor, what she was about to ask. Her request was that he would take this presbyter into his confidence and rely on him as a man who held right opinions about God. “For my part,” she added, “I am drawing near to death, and the affairs of this life no longer concern me. The only fear I have now is that you may bring the anger of God on yourself and suffer some disaster, or lose your empire, because you have been led to condemn just and good men wrongly to banishment for life.” From then on the emperor received the presbyter into favor. He allowed him to speak freely with him and to talk about the same matters his sister had charged him with, and then he judged it necessary to have the case of Arius examined afresh. Probably, in reaching this decision, the emperor was moved either by a belief that the accusations were credible or by a wish to please his sister. Not long afterward he recalled Arius from exile and required of him a written statement of his faith about the Godhead. Arius avoided the new terms he had invented before and put together another statement in simple terms, such as the sacred Scriptures recognize. He declared on oath that he held the teachings set out in this statement, that he believed them from the heart, and that he had no other thought than these. It read as follows: “Arius and Euzoius, presbyters, to Constantine, our most devout emperor, most beloved of God. [b] “As your piety, beloved of God, commanded, sovereign emperor, we here give a written statement of our own faith, and we declare before God that we, and all who are with us, believe what is set out here. “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, and in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was begotten from him before all ages, God the Word, through whom all things were made, whether things in heaven or things on earth. He came and took flesh on himself, suffered and rose again, and ascended into heaven, from where he will come again to judge the living and the dead. “We believe in the Holy Spirit, in the resurrection of the body, in the life to come, in the kingdom of heaven, and in one catholic church of God, established throughout the earth. We have received this faith from the holy Gospels, in which the Lord says to his disciples, ‘Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ “If we do not believe this, and if we do not truly accept the teachings about the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit as they are taught by the whole catholic church and by the sacred Scriptures, as we believe them in every point, let God be our judge, both now and in the day that is coming. “So we appeal to your piety, our emperor most beloved of God: since we are enrolled among the clergy, and since we hold the faith and the mind of the church and of the sacred Scriptures, let us be openly reconciled to our mother, the church, through your peacemaking and devout piety. Then useless questions and disputes may be set aside, we and the church may live together in peace, and we may all together offer the customary prayer for your peaceful and devout reign and for your whole family.” [d]

Many thought this declaration of faith a cunning piece of work, which seemed to differ in its wording while in reality it supported the teaching of Arius; for its terms were so vague that they could be taken in different ways. The emperor imagined that Arius and Euzoius were of the same mind as the bishops of the Council of Nicaea, and he was delighted with the matter. Still, he did not try to restore them to communion without the judgment and approval of those who, by the law of the church, have authority in such matters. So he sent them to the bishops who were then gathered at Jerusalem, and wrote asking them to examine the declaration of faith that Arius and Euzoius had submitted. He asked them to guide the synod so that a kindly decision would be granted them either way: whether they found that their teaching was sound and that the jealousy of their enemies had been the only cause of their condemnation, or whether, without blaming those who had condemned them, they found that the two men had changed their minds. Those who had long been eager for this seized the opportunity, under cover of the emperor’s letter, and received him into fellowship. They wrote at once to the emperor himself, to the church of Alexandria, and to the bishops and clergy of Egypt, the Thebaid and Libya, urging them strongly to receive Arius and Euzoius into communion, since the emperor had testified in one of his own letters that their faith was sound, and since the synod had confirmed the emperor’s judgment by its vote. [e] These were the matters the Synod of Jerusalem took up so eagerly.