for Athanasius. He was accordingly banished into Phrygia, where he died.

10. A.D. 355. The Council of Milan, of more than 300 Bishops of the West. Nearly all of them subscribed the condemnation of Athanasius; whether they generally subscribed the heretical creed, which was brought forward, does not appear. The Pope's four legates remained firm, and St. Dionysius of Milan, who died an exile in Asia Minor. An Arian was put into his See. Saturninus, the Bishop of Arles, proceeded to hold a council at Beziers; and its Fathers banished St. Hilary to Phrygia.

11. A.D. 357-9. The Arians and Semi-Arians successively draw up fresh creeds at Sirmium. 12. A.D. 357-8. Hosius falls. "Constantius used such violence towards the old man, and confined him so straitly, that at last, broken by suffering, he was brought, though hardly, to hold communion with Valens and Ursacius [the Arian leaders], though he would not subscribe against Athanasius." Athan. Arian. Hist. 45.

13. A.D. 357-8. And Liberius. "The tragedy was not ended in the lapse of Hosius, but in the evil which befell Liberius, the Roman Pontiff, it became far more dreadful and mournful, considering that he was Bishop of so great a city, and of the whole Catholic Church, and that he had so bravely resisted Constantine two years previously. There is nothing, whether in the historians and holy fathers, or in his own letters, to prevent our coming to the conclusion, that Liberius communicated with the Arians, and confirmed the sentence passed by them against Athanasius; but he is not at all on that account to be called a heretic." Baron. Ann. 357, 38-45. Athanasius says: "Liberius, after he had been in banishment for two years, gave way, and from fear of threatened death was induced to subscribe." Arian. Hist. § 41. St. Jerome says: "Liberius, tædio victus exilii, et in hæreticam pravitatem subscribens, Romam quasi victor intraverat." Chron. ed. Val. p. 797.

14. A.D. 359. The great Councils of Seleucia and Arimi

num, being one bi-partite Council, representing the East and West respectively. At Seleucia there were 150 Bishops, of which only the twelve or thirteen from Egypt were champions of the Nicene "Consubstantial." At Ariminum there were as many as 400 Bishops, who, worn out by the artifice of long delay on the part of the Arians, abandoned the "Consubstantial," and subscribed the ambiguous formula which the heretics had substituted for it.

15. About A.D. 360, St. Hilary says: "I am not speaking of things foreign to my knowledge; I am not writing about what I am ignorant of; I have heard and I have seen the shortcomings of persons who are round about me, not of laymen, but of Bishops. For, excepting the Bishop Eleusius and a few with him, for the most part the ten Asian provinces, within whose boundaries I am situate, are truly ignorant of God." De Syn. 63. It is observable, that even Eleusius, who is here spoken of as somewhat better than the rest, was a Semi-Arian, according to Socrates, and even a persecutor of Catholics at Constantinople; and, according to Sozomen, one of those who were active in causing Pope Liberius to give up the Nicene formula of the " Consubstantial." By the ten Asian provinces is meant the east and south provinces of Asia Minor, pretty nearly as cut off by a line passing from Cyzicus to Seleucia through Synnada.

16. A.D. 360. St. Gregory Nazianzen says, about this date: "Surely the pastors have done foolishly; for, excepting a very few, who either on account of their insignificance were passed over, or who by reason of their virtue resisted, and who were to be left as a seed and root for the springing up again and revival of Israel by the influences of the Spirit, all temporized, only differing from each other in this, that some succumbed earlier, and others later; some were foremost champions and leaders in the impiety, and others joined the second rank of the battle, being overcome by fear, or by interest, or by flattery, or, what was the most excusable, by their own ignorance." Orat. xxi. 24.

17. A.D. 361. About this time, St. Jerome says: "Nearly

all the churches in the whole world, under the pretence of peace and of the emperor, are polluted with the communion of the Arians." Chron. Of the same date, that is, upon the Council of Ariminum, are his famous words, "Ingemuit totus orbis et se esse Arianum miratus est." In Lucif. 19. "The Catholics of Christendom were strangely surprised to find that the Council had made Arians of them."

18. A.D. 362. State of the Church of Antioch at this time. There were four Bishops or communions of Antioch ; first, the old succession and communion, which had possession before the Arian troubles; secondly, the Arian succession, which had lately conformed to orthodoxy in the person of Meletius; thirdly, the new Latin succession, lately created by Lucifer, whom some have thought the Pope's legate there; and, fourthly, the new Arian succession, which was started upon the recantation of Meletius. At length, as Arianism

was brought under, the evil reduced itself to two Episcopal Successions, that of Meletius and the Latin, which went on for many years, the West and Egypt holding communion with the latter, and the East with the former.

19. St. Hilary speaks of the series of ecclesiastical Councils of that time in the following well-known passage: "Since the Nicene Council, we have done nothing but write the Creed. While we fight about words, inquire about novelties, take advantage of ambiguities, criticize authors, fight on party questions, have difficulties in agreeing, and prepare to anathematize each other, there is scarce a man who belongs to Christ. Take, for instance, last year's Creed, what alteration is there not in it already? First, we have the Creed, which bids us not to use the Nicene 'consubstantial;' then comes another, which decrees and preaches it; next, the third, excuses the word 'substance,' as adopted by the Fathers in their simplicity; lastly, the fourth, which instead of excusing, condemns. We determine creeds by the year or by the month, we change our own determinations, we prohibit our changes, we anathematize our prohibitions. Thus, we either condemn others in our own persons, or ourselves in

the instance of others, and while we bite and devour one another, are like to be consumed one of another." Ad Const. ii. 4, 5.

20. A.D. 382. St. Gregory writes: "If I must speak the truth, I feel disposed to shun every conference of Bishops: for never saw I Synod brought to a happy issue, and remedying, and not rather aggravating, existing evils. For rivalry and ambition are stronger than reason,-do not think me extravagant for saying so, and a mediator is more likely to incur some imputation himself than to clear up the imputations which others lie under." Ep. 129.

2.

Coming to the opposite side of the contrast, I observe that there were great efforts made on the part of the Arians to render their heresy popular. Arius himself, according to the Arian Philostorgius, "wrote songs for the sea, and for the mill, and for the road, and then set them to suitable music." Hist. ii. 2. Alexander speaks of the "running about" of the Arian women, Theod. Hist. i. 4, and of the buffoonery of their men. Socrates says that "in the Imperial court, the officers of the bed-chamber held disputes with the women, and in the city, in every house, there was a war of dialectics," ii. 2. Especially at Constantinople there were, as Gregory says, "of Jezebels as thick a crop as of hemlock in a field," Orat. 35, 3; and he himself suffered from the popular violence there. At Alexandria the Arian women are described by Athanasius as "running up and down like Bacchanals and furies," and as "passing that day in grief on which they could do no harm." Hist. Arian. 59.

The controversy was introduced in ridicule into the heathen theatres, Euseb. v. Const. ii. 6. Socr. i. 6. "Men of yesterday," says Gregory Nyssen, "mere mechanics, offhand dogmatists in theology, servants too and slaves that have been scourged, run-aways from servile work, and philo

4 The translations which follow are for the most part from Bohn's and the Oxford editions, the passages being abridged.

sophical about things incomprehensible. Of such the city is full; its entrances, forums, squares, thoroughfares; the clothes-vendors, the money-lenders, the victuallers. Ask about pence, and they will discuss the generate and ingenerate," &c., &c., tom. ii. p. 898. Socrates, too, says that the heresy "ravaged provinces and cities ;" and Theodoret, that "quarrels took place in every city and village concerning the divine dogma, the people looking on, and taking sides." Hist. i. 6.

In spite of these attempts, however, on the part of the Arians, still, viewing Christendom as a whole, we shall find that the Catholic populations sided with Athanasius; and the fierce disputes above described evidenced the zeal of the orthodox rather than the strength of the heretical party. This will appear in the following extracts :

1. ALEXANDRIA. "We suppose," says Athanasius, “you are not ignorant what outrages they [the Arian Bishops] committed at Alexandria, for they are reported every where. They attacked the holy virgins and brethren with naked. swords; they beat with scourges their persons, esteemed honourable in God's sight, so that their feet were lamed by the stripes, whose souls were whole and sound in purity and all good works." Athan. Ap. c. Arian. 15.

66

Accordingly Constantius writes letters, and commences a persecution against all. Gathering together a multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, and dissolute youths belonging to the town, armed with swords and clubs, they attacked in a body the Church of Quirinus: and some they slew, some they trampled under foot, others they beat with stripes and cast into prison or banished. They haled away many women also, and dragged them openly into the court, and insulted them, dragging them by the hair. Some they proscribed; from some they took away their bread, for no other reason but that they might be induced to join the Arians, and receive Gregory [the Arian Bishop], who had been sent by the Emperor." Athan. Hist. Arian. § 10.

"On the week that succeeded the holy Pentecost, when