13
and foremost an Origenist and held that the Word, while eternal, was generated; however, political
rivals pressured Alexander to denounce the presbyter as a heretic.
47
Buckling under the pressure,
Alexander called a council of one hundred Bishops condemning Arius`s teachings, and exiling him.
Arius proceeded to Nicomedia, the home of his close friend and fellow Lucianite, Eusebius.
48
By 324, Constantine had finally consolidated his power across the entire empire, he turned
his attention to items that were disrupting peace in his land. Hearing of the trouble brewing in
Egypt, he sent an envoy in the person of Hosia of Cordoba to quiet the bickering Alexandrians.
Hosia sided with the bishop, and eventually excommunicated Eusebius, friend to both Arius and the
emperor.
49
In January of 325, the emperor read Hosia`s report. Seeing himself as Pontifex Maximus,
Constantine called an empire-wide ecumenical council in order to put an end to the matter. He
called the first ecumenical council to be held that year in the city of Nicea.
50
In Alexandria, theology played less of a role in the development of the doctrine of Trinity
than did politics. The ideas that were being argued in Alexandria had already been discussed earlier.
The main force in Egyptian Africa was politics. Carthage had been using a fully realized trinitarian
doctrine by the middle of the third century, but in the East, politics, not theology, held sway. So, it is
probably most fitting that the solution to the political problem in Alexandria was resolved by the
Emperor.
47
Williams, 32-41; Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 495; Frend, The Early Church, 135-38;
Socrates, I.15.
48
Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 495; Gonzalez, 161-62.
49
Gonzalez, 161-62; Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 496-97; Frend, The Early Church, 138;.
50
Frend, The Rise of Christianity, 497; Gonzalez, 158-59.