First Synod of Tyre

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Athanasius was elected bishop or Patriarch of Alexandria in 328. (Hanson, p. 246) However, seven years later, at the First Synod of Tyre or the Council of Tyre (335 AD), a gathering of bishops called together by Emperor Constantine I to evaluate charges brought against him, he was found guilty of barbaric violence against the Melitians, deposed from being archbishop of Alexandria, and excommunicated.

Background[edit]

We must distinguish the ‘Melitian Schism’ early in the fourth century from the ‘Meletian Schism’ later in that century. The latter was a dispute between two pro-Nicene groups in Antioch, primarily about the number of hypostases in God. In contrast, the Melitians were the brave Christians in Egypt who, during the Great Persecution at the beginning of the fourth century, following Bishop Melitius of Lycopolis, refused to hide from that persecution. However, the Melitians also refused to receive back into communion the Christians who had denied their faith during that persecution. They objected to the terms laid down by Peter, the bishop of Alexandria, for the readmission of 'lapsed' Christians. This caused division in the church but the Nicene Council of 325 made arrangements about the Melitians.

Alexander died in 328 and Athanasius was elected as bishop or patriarch of Alexandria. A few years later, the Melitians appealed to the emperor for protection against Athanasius.[1] They accused him of preventing people from entering church buildings, burning of churches, imprisonments, beatings, and even of murder.[2]

But their appeal failed. Eusebius of Nicomedia was one of Arius’ supporters who were exiled after Nicaea but who were re-admitted within a few years and who became influential with the emperor and the royal family. In the year 333 or 334,[3] five years after Athanasius had become bishop of Alexandria and after the Melitians’ failed appeal, Eusebius approached them and negotiated an alliance with them[4][5]: Eusebius “promised that he would obtain for them an audience with the Emperor if they would receive and champion Arius.”

In 334, Eusebius called a council to evaluate Athanasius' conduct but Athanasius refused to attend.[6][7]

The Synod[edit]

In 335. the emperor Constantine had ordered a Synod of bishops to be present at the consecration of the church which he had erected at Jerusalem (the precursor to the Holy Sepulchre). He directed that, as a secondary matter, they should on their way first assemble at Tyre, to examine charges that had been brought against Athanasius.[8] The emperor forced Athanasius to attend this council.[9] Emperor sent a letter to Athanasius, making clear that if he did not attend voluntarily, he would be brought to the Synod forcibly. "It was not a vast assemblage, there were only about sixty bishops present, but it held a wide representation."[10] Eusebius of Nicomedia played a major role in the council and, according to Epiphanius of Salamis, presided over the assembly.[11]

After the Council had sent a commission to Egypt,[12] it excommunicated Athanasius for indefensible violence in the administration of his see and deposed him from being archbishop of Alexandria.[13]

“It must have been clear to everybody that he had been for some time using indefensible violence in the administration of his see, even though it was not easy to bring him to book on exact charges.” (Hanson, p. 262)

"Even if some of the proceedings of the Council of Tyre were high-handed, it was beyond doubt that Athanasius had behaved with violence against the Melitians and evinced in his general conduct an authoritarian character determined to exploit the influence of his see."[14] For Hanson, the most important evidence was in papyrus letters discovered in the sands of Egypt during the 20th century.[15][better source needed]

Athanasius' Response[edit]

Athanasius claimed that the allegations were false. Traditionally, the church had accepted his explanation. Some of the accusations were indeed proven to be false.[16] However, papyrus letters discovered during the 20th century, which we cannot possibly dismiss as inventions, exaggerations, or propaganda, describe the barbaric treatment Athanasius had been dealing out.[17][18][19] Therefore, “he had been justly convicted of disgraceful behaviour in his see.” (Hanson, p. 254-5)[20]

"His conviction had nothing to do with doctrinal issues." "We can now see why, for at least twenty years after 335, no Eastern bishops would communicate with Athanasius. He had been justly convicted of disgraceful behaviour in his see."[21]

Since the Eusebians allied with the Melitians, Athanasius claimed that he was being persecuted for his theology and that these accusations were formulated by ‘Arians’ to eliminate him as their theological opponent. However, “his conviction had nothing to do with doctrinal issues.” (Hanson, p. 255)[22] The so-called Arians allied with the Melitians only after the Melitians already had unsuccessfully appealed to the emperor.[23] Athanasius' aggression was not aimed at 'Arians.'[24] The fundamental cause of Athanasius' aggression is that he did not accept the arrangement made about the Melitians at Nicaea.[25]

Athanasius defends by slandering his opponents. “He represents the Council of Tyre, which was a properly constituted and entirely respectable gathering of churchmen, some of whom had been confessors in the Great Persecution, as a gang of disreputable conspirators, and brands all his opponents as favourers of heresy.” (Hanson, p. 262)

Aftermath[edit]

"Athanasius ... fled to Constantinople to press his case directly before the Emperor." "But when his enemies also charged him with interrupting the grain supply from Egypt Constantine turned against him: Athanasius was exiled to Trier,"[26] then part of the Gallic prefecture of Rome (in present-day Germany).

Athanasius did not return from exile until the death of Constantine in 337, when all exiles were allowed to return. However, after he returned, the "East" instituted new charges against Athanasius.[27]

After Constantine death, his sons divided the empire between them. This allowed the churches in the West and East to develop in different directions. After Athanasius was exiled in 335, he formed an alliance with the Sabellian Marcellus. With his support, Athanasius developed his polemical strategy which claims that all opponents of Nicaea are followers of Arius and that he himself had been exiled for his support for Nicaea. In 340, he appealed to the West and in 341, at the Council of Rome, the Western church evaluated Athanasius and Marcellus and declared them orthodox.

In the 340's the empire remained divided. In response to the West's acceptance of Athanasius and Marcellus, the East issued the Dedication Creed in 341 which primarily opposed Sabellianism. At the failed Council at Serdica, the West issued an explicit one-hypostasis creed. The East responded with the Macrostich in 344. See Arian Creeds. In this period, Athanasius became very powerful, both politically and theologically. He was the “paragon” of the West (Hanson, p. 304)[28]

In the early 350s, the empire united again under Constantius. he attempted (and succeeded to a great extent) to convince the West to accept the Homoian Creeds of the East, but his main enemy was Athanasius.

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  • Socrates Scholasticus & Sozomen, Historia Ecclesiastica, Book II: from the Council of Nicea to Constantine's death
  • Westminster Dictionary of Church History, ed. Jerald C. Brauer (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971)
  1. ^ “It is perhaps impossible to reconstruct the exact order of events, but the evidence seems to point clearly to the conclusion that several years must have elapsed between Athanasius succeeding to the see of Alexandria and the first moves of the Melitians against him.” (Hanson, p. 251)
  2. ^ Sozomenus mentions: “Accusation made by Melitians (not Arians) to the Emperor against Athanasius, charging him with causing divisions and disturbances in his diocese, with preventing people from entering the church (i.e. the church building) and (charges made particularly by 'John', that is John Arcaph the Melitian leader, and the clergy associated with him) of murders and imprisonments and undeserved beatings and woundings and burning of churches.” (Hanson, p. 249-250)
  3. ^ “In this year (333) or in the next the Melitians found an ally in the Eusebians.” (Hanson, p. 258)
  4. ^ “Epiphanius goes on to say that the leaders of the Melitians were, after their discomfiture [their failed appeal to the emperor], near the court … and were at that point taken in hand by Eusebius of Nicomedia who promised that he would obtain for them an audience with the Emperor if they would receive and champion Arius, and, on their agreeing, the fusion of the causes of Arius and of Melitius took place.” (Hanson, p. 250)
  5. ^ “The Melitians, harried unmercifully by Athanasius and unable at first to obtain help from the Emperor, turned to the only help available to them, that of the Eusebians.” (Hanson, p. 255)
  6. ^ “In this year (333) or in the next the Melitians found an ally in the Eusebians. … But it was not till the next year, 334, that the fruit of this alliance appeared. A Council was called to Caesarea in Palestine … to examine the conduct, not the doctrine, of Athanasius.” (Hanson, p. 258)
  7. ^ “Athanasius was summoned to it, but refused to attend.” (Hanson, p. 259)
  8. ^ Socrates Scholasticus, "The Eccesiastical History, by Socrates Scholasticus," in Socrates, Sozomenus: Church Histories, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. A. C. Zenos, vol. 2, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), p.30.
  9. ^ “Next year, however, in the summer of 335, the Council of Caesarea was re-constituted or re-summoned in Tyre. And on this occasion Constantine showed openly his support of this move by appointing an imperial official, the consular Dionysius, to oversee it. It was not a vast assemblage, there were only about sixty bishops present, but it held a wide representation. … Athanasius was unwillingly compelled to attend by threats from Constantine. … He also knew that they had a strong case” (Hanson, p. 259)
  10. ^ Hanson p. 259
  11. ^ Philip Schaff and David Schley Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 3 (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1910), p.874.
  12. ^ “After some time the Council decided to send a Commission (to Egypt) … to collect evidence on the spot.” (Hanson, p. 260)
  13. ^ “The result was that the Council of Tyre condemned Athanasius on a number of charges, deposed him from being archbishop of Alexandria, excommunicated him, and forbade him to return to his former see. Precisely what the charges upon which he was condemned is not altogether clear. … They had not convicted Athanasius of murdering Arsenius nor of any doctrinal error at all.” (Hanson, p. 261)
  14. ^ Hanson, p272
  15. ^ was justly deposed for violence against the Melitians
  16. ^ One of the accusations was “that Athanasius had either murdered a bishop called Arsenius or … practised sorcery by using the severed hand of his corpse.” (Hanson, p. 256) However, “the agents of Athanasius discovered that Arsenius was alive and in possession of both his hands … and had him identified' before Paul, bishop of Tyre.” (Hanson, p. 257).
  17. ^ “But, accidentally or providentially, we have available to us contemporary evidence which we cannot possibly dismiss as invention or exaggeration or propaganda, to decide this point.” (Hanson, p. 251-2) “This evidence consists of papyrus letters discovered by British archaeologists and published by H. I. Bell in his book Jews and Christians in Egypt. … They plunge us into the middle of the events which concerned Athanasius between the years 331 and 335.” (Hanson, p. 252) “It is a factual account written for people under persecution, a private missive not intended for publication nor propaganda, and therefore all the more damning.” (Hanson, p. 252) “It describes … the barbarous treatment which he (Athanasius) is meanwhile dealing out to those Melitians who have opposed him.” (Hanson, p. 252)
  18. ^ The following is an example from those letters: “Isaac bishop of Leto came to Heraiscus (evidently an eminent Melitian bishop) in Alexandria, wanting to have supper with the bishop in the camp (near Alexandria, called Nicopolis). Some drunken adherents of Athanasius arrived at the 9th hour (3 p.m.), with soldiers. They shut the gates of the camp and began searching for Isaac and Heraiscus. Some soldiers in the camp had hidden them and when the Athanasian party could not find them, they attacked some Melitians whom they met coming into the camp and maltreated them and threw them out of Nicopolis. They then arrested five Melitians who were in a hostel imprisoned them for a time and then threw them too out of Nicopolis, and beat the keeper of the hostel for putting up Melitian monks. And they shut up somebody called Ammon in the camp because he welcomed Melitians into his house. So Callistus and his friends are afraid to visit Heraiscus in the camp.” (Hanson, p. 252-3)
  19. ^ “We find Athanasius behaving like an employer of thugs hired to intimidate his enemies.” (RH 254)
  20. ^ “The charge against him at Tyre was the unscrupulous use of strong-arm methods against his opponents, and that charge as a general accusation … was abundantly justified.” (Hanson, p. 255)
  21. ^ Hanson, p254-5
  22. ^ The alliance between the Eusebians and Melitians “gave Athanasius an opportunity of clouding the issue by ascribing all protest against his outrageous conduct to bias towards Arianism, an opportunity of which he strove earnestly to take advantage. But … Athanasius' offence had nothing to do with doctrine.” (Hanson, p. 255)
  23. ^ “Athanasius in his account of the incidents leading up to Constantine's letter puts the blame on the Arians and gives the impression that by this time the Melitians and the Arians had formed a deliberate alliance against him. But it is very likely that this alliance had not yet been formed.” (Hanson, p. 250)
  24. ^ “It seems clear also that Athanasius' first efforts at gangsterism in his diocese had nothing to do with difference of opinion on the subject of the Arian Controversy, but were directed against the Melitians.” (Hanson, p. 254)
  25. ^ “He had not agreed with the arrangement made about the Melitians at Nicaea. Once he was in the saddle, he determined to suppress them with a strong hand, and was not at all scrupulous about the methods he used.” (Hanson, p. 254)
  26. ^ Ayres, Lewis, Nicaea and its Legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004, pages 102-3
  27. ^ The year 338 "was to see a renewal of the opposition to Athanasius on the part of Eusebius of Nicomedia and his party. After all, Athanasius had been formally deposed by a properly constituted synod on charges which could hardly be refuted. It was against all church order and tradition that he should be readmitted to his see on the bare word of an Emperor who did not even have any jurisdiction in Egypt." (Hanson. p. 266)
  28. ^ "Towards the end of his life he had reached a position in which his power (in Egypt), not only ecclesiastical but also political, was virtually beyond challenge.” (Hanson, p. 421)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Tyre". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

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