Constantine desires that Alexander and Arius not dispute over the exegesis of a "single passage of scripture."

Steven Avery · Sep 22, 2017

Arians sing hymn against "three are one" - La Cava - Cavensis "audiat hoc Arius et ceteri" - '...where are they that affirm that the Three are One?'"
https://www.purebibleforum.com/inde...affirm-that-the-three-are-one.1830/#post-7048

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Pope Alexander of Alexandria (d. 326 or 328) -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Alexander_I_of_Alexandria

Arius (250 or 256-336)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arius

Constantine the Great (272-337)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great

Hosius of Cordoba (c. 256-309) - - Osius - Ossius
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosius_of_Corduba

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Barnes
Documents of the Early Arian Controversy
TWOGIG
Socrates
Burgess
Harnack

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We saw from Jerome that the heavenly witnesses was a verse that was creating disputes and discords, in his Psalm 91 homily and in the Vulgate Prologue. There are a number of indications that the verse was central focus, and often surpressed, from the Regensburg manuscript, to the Discipina Arcana, to a special focus on 1 John. And in the Disputation of Arius and Athanasius the verse is referenced.

Even in the time of Constantine, there is a reference to a "single passage of scripture" creating discord between what we today call the Orthodox and the Arians. (Barnes or Stevenson points out that we should not see this anachronistically, by putting the current accepted ideas into Constantine pre-Nicaea.)

Constantine and Eusebius (1981)
Timothy David Barnes
https://books.google.com/books?id=LGDjJK-JeSwC&pg=PA213

"Constantine .. then returned to Nicomedia, where his presence is attested on 25 February 3 323.25 He himself explains the change of plan: he did not wish to see and hear the theological bickering which divided the East.26 The Arian controversy forced itself on his attention just at the period when he most wished to concentrate on converting pagans to Christianity. By 324 not only were bishops denouncing one another, but congregations were divided into two parties, and in the theater pagans taunted Christians about their dissensions.27

Constantine felt a moral duty to intervene in the dispute. He wrote a letter to Alexander and Arius urging them to settle their differences peaceably and entrusted it to Ossius of Corduba, who had probably remained constantly at court since 312.28 In fact, no real possibility of compromise existed. If Constantine hoped to mediate the quarrel, it was because he set a lower value on theological definitions, which he considered pedantic, than on making the Roman Empire Christian.29

The letter which Ossius took to Alexandria repeatedly rebukes Alexander and Arius for quarreling over questions which are of no importance. The bishop ought not to have interrogated his priests about their exegesis of a single passage of Scripture, and Arius ought to have maintained silence; both question and answers were produced by the contentious spirit of idle leisure. Their dispute is far less serious than the Donatist schism which divides Africa.30 For the central doctrines of the divine law are not in dispute, nor has anyone introduced a novel way of worshiping God. Since the debate is a philosophical one, Constantine urges Alexander and Arius to behave like philosophers; their agreement on the main issues far outweighs minor differences, especially because they disagree on a question where the feebleness of the human intellect hinders the clear exposition or apprehension of the truth.31

Documents of the Early Arian Controversy – Emperor Constantine to Alexander of Alexandria and Arius
http://www.fourthcentury.com/urkunde-17/

6.) I understand that the origin of the present controversy is this. When you, Alexander, demanded of the priests what opinion they each maintained respecting a certain passage in Scripture, or rather, I should say, that you asked them something connected with an unprofitable question. You then, Arius, inconsiderately insisted on what ought never to have been speculated about at all, or if pondered, should have been buried in profound silence.

Steven Avery · Jul 25, 2022

TWOGIG
The Emperor Constantine being grieved at the Disturbance of the Churches, sends Hosius the Spaniard to Alexandria, exhorting the Bishop and Ariusto Reconciliation and Unity.

• When the emperor was made acquainted with these disorders, he was very deeply grieved; and regarding the matter as a personal misfortune, immediately exerted himself to extinguish the conflagration which had been kindled, and sent a letter to Alexander and Arius by a trustworthy person named Hosius, who was bishop of Cordova, in Spain. The emperor greatly loved this man and held him in the highest estimation. It will not be out of place to introduce here a portion of this letter, the whole of which is given in the life of Constantine by Eusebius.”Victor Constantine Maximum Augustus to Alexander and Arius. I am informed that your present controversy originated thus. When you, Alexander, inquired of your presbyters what each thought on a certain inexplicable passage of the written Word, rather on a subject improper for discussion; and you, Arius, rashly gave expression to a view of the matter such as ought either never to have been conceived...”
(Socrates, Ecclesiastical History. Book 1. Chapter 7; NPNF02, vol 2. www.newadvent.org/fathers/26011.htm )

• [Burgess] Now, if we consider, that the doctrine of the unity of the Trinity was by Arius accused of Sabellianism, and that, in order to invalidate it, he endeavoured to subvert the Divinity of the Word, it will be evident, that there is only one passage of Scripture which corresponds with these several particulars. There is no other passage but 1 John v. 7, to which Arius could have imputed the opinion of Sabellius ; no other, which teaches, that Three are [PAGE 89] One; no other, which mentions the Word, as one of the Three Persons of the Deity; no other, which could have given occasion to Arius’s denying that the Word was of the same nature and essence with the Father: I conclude, therefore, that the verse of St. John was the passage intended by Constantine, as the ground of the dispute between Alexander and Arius, and the origin of the Arian controversy; and therefore that it was in the Greek text of the fourth century.

(Burgess, A letter to the clergy of the diocese of St. David's on a passage of the second Symbolum Antiochenum of the fourth century as an evidence of the authenticity of 1 John v. 7, 1825, p. 86-89)

A letter to the clergy of the diocese of St. David's on a passage of the second Symbolum Antiochenum of the fourth century as an evidence of the authenticity of 1 John v. 7 (1825)
https://archive.org/details/lettertoclergyof00burg/page/86/mode/1up

Steven Avery · Jul 25, 2022

History of Dogma, Volume 4 (1907)
Adolf von Harnack
https://books.google.com/books?id=VFFGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA8
character, though vain. He was highly respected in the city; the ascetics and the virgins were specially attached to him. His activity had been recognised also by the new bishop Alexander who began his episcopate in 313. The outbreak of the controversy is wrapped in obscurity, owing to the fact that the accounts are mutually contradictory. According to the oldest testimony it was an opinion expressed by Arius when questioned by the bishop on a certain passage of Scripture, and to which he obstinately adhered, which really began the controversy, 2 possibly in the year 318. Since the persecution had ceased, the Christological question was the dominant one in the Alexandrian Church. Arius was not the first to raise it. On the contrary he was able later on to remind the bishop how the latter had often both in the Church and in the Council of Presbyters (GreeK) refuted the Valentinian Christology, according to which the Son is an

2 See Constantine’s letter in Euseb., Vita Constant. II. 69; the notices in the Church historians and in Epiphianius (II. 69. 4) can hardly be reconciled with it. Along with Constantine’s statements the account of Socrates is specially worthy of consideration (I. 5).

Steven Avery · Jul 25, 2022

London Quarterly Review - 1825
Quarterly Review contra Burgess - 1826
http://books.google.com/books?id=z-gRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA99

A Letter to the Reverend Thomas Beynon, Archdeacon of Cardigan,: In Reply to A Vindication of the Literary Character of Professor Porson, by Crito Cantabrigiensis: and in Further Proof of the Authenticity of 1 John, V. 7 (1829)
By Thomas Burgess
http://books.google.com/books?id=DI1QNrUdMpAC&pg=PA18

The Greek Church: A Sketch (1851)
Ernest Silvanus Appleyard
https://books.google.com/books?id=q8kCAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA50

History of Liberty (1853)
By Samuel Eliot
http://books.google.com/books?id=F0loAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA62

General History of the Christian Religion and Church (1855) (1871)
August Neander
https://books.google.com/books?id=1ZovAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA409

The Christian Observer (1867) - no Constantine letter
Review of Charles Forster
http://books.google.com/books?id=UMYRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA941

Henry Armfield - no Constantine in book
http://www.archive.org/stream/threewitnessesdi00armf#page/136/mode/1up/

Schaff (1902)
https://books.google.com/books?id=IYLYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PR16

Constantine the Great: The Reorganisation of the Empire and the Triumph of the Church (1914)
John Benjamin Firth
http://books.google.com/books?id=poygAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA207

James Stevenson (1957)
https://books.google.com/books?id=_WmKAAAAQBAJ&pg=PT407

Constantine and Eusebius (1981)
Timothy David Barnes
https://books.google.com/books?id=LGDjJK-JeSwC&pg=PA213
p. 213 - above

Joel Watts
http://unsettledchristianity.com/category/church-fathers/athanasius/page/2/#_ednref2

Facebook - NT Textual Criticism
https://www.facebook.com/groups/NTTextualCriticism/permalink/876165335803801/
Arians sing against "three are one"
Early Latin La Cava ms. counters Arian hostility to the heavenly witnesses
"certain passage of scripture"

Steven Avery · Aug 29, 2025

Facebook - Patristics for Protestants
Carl Mosser
https://www.facebook.com/groups/patristicsforprotestants/permalink/24359856853673447/

My post in response to:

“trifling semantic point”

(1.) Constantine was not inclined toward Arianism. That is clear from his own writings from the period. At the beginning of the controversy he thought the dispute was over a trifling semantic point, by the end he seems to have been genuinely persuaded that Arius' theology was wrong.

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Steven Avery
Thanks, Carl!
The reference to a “trifling semantic point” likely leads to what was described by Timothy David Barnes as:
“The bishop ought not to have interrogated his priests about their exegesis of a single passage of Scripture, and Arius ought to have maintained silence; both question and answers were produced by the contentious spirit of idle leisure.”
- Constantine and Eusebius, 1981, p. 213
New Advent has this in translation from Socrates as:
“When you, Alexander, inquired of your presbyters what each thought on a certain inexplicable passage of the written Word, rather on a subject improper for discussion; and you, Arius, rashly gave expression to a view of the matter such as ought either never to have been conceived...”
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It is very possible that this was a reference to the heavenly witnesses, 1 John 5:7 which was uneven in the Greek and Latin manuscripts (see Jerome’s Vulgate Prologue to the Canonical Epistles).
1 John 5:7 (AV)
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.
Which would be much more than a trifling semantic point !

This interpretation was eloquentl advancred by Thomas Burgess (1756–1837), Bishop of St David's and of Salisbury. which you can read here:
London Quarterly Review - 1825
Quarterly Review contra Burgess - 1826
http://books.google.com/books?id=z-gRAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA99