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THE BIBLIOTHECA SACRA,

VOLUME XXI.

THE BIBLICAL REPOSITORY,

VOLUME LII.

THE CHRISTIAN REVIEW,

VOLUME XXVIII.

1

THE

BIBLIOTHECA SACRA,

No. LXXXI.

JANUARY, 1864.

ARTICLE I.

ATHANASIUS AND THE ARIAN CONTROVERSY.1

BY REV. C. F. SCILAEFFER, d.d., professor, etc., THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, GETTYSBURg, pa.

§ 1. PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

No doctrine that combines both philosophical and also religious elements, has ever engendered such violent contests in Christendom as those which succeeded the introduction of Arianism. They convulsed alike the Oriental and the Western church; they were maintained during a period of more than half a century; and, while they continued, political influences were as actively exercised as those which proceeded from the church. The struggle necessarily assumed, during its progress, such vast proportions. For Arianism was not simply a heresy which a single individual — an energetic agitator-endeavored to promulgate, but is rather to be viewed as a new conflict between the spirit of the world and the spirit of revelation. That conflict had originally possessed an external character during the three

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1 This Article presents the substance of Chap. I., Second Division, of II. Voigt's recent work: Die Lehre des Athanasius von Alexandrien [The Doctrinal System of Athanasius]. The author exhibits in the First Division the general points of faith, as held by Athanasius, and in the Second describes, in detail, his controversies with the Arians, the Sabellians, the Pneumatomachians, and the Apollinarians.

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