The Beginning of the End

It’s time to pick up the series. Sorry about the gap, there’s a little project I’m working on that you all will get to see hopefully around May. Anyways, back to history.

So when we left, Athanasius was in exile, two bishops claimed authority in Constantinople, and the Emperor was against Orthodoxy, which had already ben formally established.

The now-deposed bishop of Constantinople was a man named Macedonius. He would inspire ANOTHER new heresy to throw the world into even more confusion. Macedonius was the leader of the Macedonian heresy. They’ll get their own post a little later in the week.

Anyways, while Macedonius was bishop, he had a bit of an issue with persecuting people. He persecuted both the Catholics and the Novatians (who will also be getting a post later in the week) as the bishop. His reign as bishop, though, was rather typical of what happened after the success of Constantius.

Right as the Arians had reached the heights of their power, there were signs of discord. There were many, many divisions. There were really four main groups:

            Anomoeans (full-on Arians)

            Semi-Arians (Eusebius’s followers)

            Almost-Orthodox (Didn’t like Arianism, but cautious with Orthodoxy)

            Orthodox (Most of the common people followed this one)

To figure out where the bishops stood on all of this, there was a council held in 358 at Sirmium. It officially condemned the Anomoeans. The declaration of faith that it created was considered orthodox, but it didn’t use that fancy word from Nicaea, homoousios. Pope Liberius himself showed up at the council. He signed the formula, but he also added a provision saying that anybody who said the Father is unlike the Son is excommunicated.

This little incident is one incident that historically-savvy people will point to in denying papal infallibility. They would claim that the Pope here signed a formula which was actually heretical. There’s just one minor problem with this view… There’s nothing actually wrong with the formula of faith. It just doesn’t use the fancy word from Nicaea. This was to keep the almost-orthodox people happy.

Back to history. The fact that Pope Liberius showed up was a big deal. Why? Because he had been put into exile by Constantius. While Liberius was in exile, Constantius decided that Rome still needed a Pope. So he decided to make his own, Felix. There’s just one problem with this idea. Any Pope installed outside of the proper procedure for choosing a Pope (in modern times, the elections) is considered an Anti-Pope. So now there was an Anti-Pope in Rome.

After a few years, though, Liberius was allowed to return to Rome. When Liberius walked back into Rome, though, there were a few minor problems. The biggest one was the fact that in the eyes of the Empire, there was already a Pope, Felix, the Anti-Pope. Constantius decided to settle the issue with an edict. He decreed that there should be two popes in Rome. The people ridiculed the edict. Nobody took it seriously, and they proclaimed Liberius the true Pope. Shortly after this, Felix died.

This signaled the beginning of the end for the Semi-Arians. They did make other successes, though. The Anomoeans were driven out by the Semi-Arians.  Constantius abolished the use of that word from Nicaea, ousia, trying to completely eliminate the debate altogether. For a time, it seemed that the whole world would become Arian, until in 361, when Constantius, the champion of the Semi-Arian cause  and Emperor, died.