_THE COUNCIL OF SARDICA._
[Sidenote: Death of Constantine, May 22, 337.]
Constantine's work on earth was done. When the hand of death was on him,
he laid aside the purple, and the ambiguous position of a Christian
Cæsar with it, and passed away in the white robe of a simple convert.
Long as he had been a friend to the churches, he had till now put off
the elementary rite of baptism, in the hope one day to receive it in the
waters of the Jordan, like the Lord himself. Darkly as his memory is
stained with isolated crimes, Constantine must for ever rank among the
greatest of the emperors; and as an actual benefactor of mankind, he
stands alone among them. Besides his great services to the Empire in his
own time, he gave the civilization of later days a new centre on the
Bosphorus, beyond the reach of Goth or Vandal. Bulgarians and Saracens
and Russians dashed themselves in pieces on the walls of Constantinople,
and the [Sidenote: A.D. 1204.] strong arms of Western and crusading
traitors were needed at last to overthrow the old bulwark which for so
many centuries had guarded Christendom. Above all, it was Constantine
who first essayed the problem of putting a Christian spirit into the
statecraft of the world. Hard as the task is even now, it was harder
still in times when the gospel had not yet had time to form, as it were,
an outwork of common feeling against some of the grosser sins. Yet
whatever might be his errors, his legislation was a landmark for ever,
because no emperor before him had been guided by a Christian sense of
duty.
[Sidenote: Division of the Empire.]
The sons of Constantine shared the Empire among them 'like an ancestral
inheritance.' Thrace and Pontus had been assigned to their cousins,
Dalmatius and Hannibalianus; but the army would have none but
Constantine's own sons to reign over them. The whole house of Theodora
perished in the tumult except two boys--Gallus and Julian, afterwards
the apostate Emperor. Thus Constantine's sons were left in possession of
the Empire. Constantine II. took Gaul and Britain, the legions of Syria
secured the East for Constantius, and Italy and Illyricum were left for
the share of the youngest, Constans.
[Sidenote: Recall of Athanasius, 337.]
One of the first acts of the new Emperors was to restore the exiled
bishops. Athanasius was released by the younger Constantine as soon as
his father's death was known at Trier, and reached Alexandria in
November 337, to the joy of both Greeks and Copts. Marcellus and the
rest were restored about the same time, though not without much
disturbance at Ancyra, where the intruding bishop Basil was an able man,
and had formed a party.
[Sidenote: Character of Constantius.]
Let us now take a glance at the new Emperor of the East. Constantius had
something of his father's character. In temperance and chastity, in love
of letters and in dignity of manner, in social charm and pleasantness of
private life, he was no unworthy son of Constantine; and if he inherited
no splendid genius for war, he had a full measure of soldierly courage
and endurance. Nor was the statesmanship entirely bad which kept the
East in tolerable peace for four-and-twenty years. But Constantius was
essentially a little man, in whom his father's vices took a meaner form.
Constantine committed some great crimes, but the whole spirit of
Constantius was corroded with fear and jealousy of every man better than
himself. Thus the easy trust in unworthy favourites, which marks even
the ablest of his family, became in Constantius a public calamity. It
was bad enough when the uprightness of Constantine or Julian was led
astray, but it was far worse when the eunuchs found a master too weak to
stand alone, too jealous to endure a faithful counsellor, too
easy-tempered and too indolent to care what oppressions were committed
in his name, and without the sense of duty which would have gone far to
make up for all his shortcomings. The peculiar repulsiveness of
Constantius is not due to any flagrant personal vice, but to the
combination of cold-blooded treachery with the utter want of any inner
nobleness of character. Yet he was a pious emperor, too, in his own way.
He loved the ecclesiastical game, and was easily won over to the
Eusebian side. The growing despotism of the Empire and the personal
vanity of Constantius were equally suited by the episcopal timidity
which cried for an arm of flesh to fight its battles. It is not easy to
decide how far he acted on his own likings and superstitions, how far he
merely let his flatterers lead him, or how far he saw political reasons
for following them. In any case, he began with a thorough dislike of the
Nicene council, continued for a long time to hold conservative language,
and ended after some vacillation by adopting the vague Homoean
compromise of 359.
[Sidenote: Second exile of Athanasius, Lent, 339.]
Eusebian intrigue was soon resumed. Now that Constantine was dead, a
schism could be set on foot at Alexandria; so the Arians were encouraged
to hold assemblies of their own, and provided with a bishop in the
person of Pistus, one of the original heretics deposed by Alexander. No
fitter consecrator could be found for him than Secundus of Ptolemais,
one of the two bishops who held out to the last against the council. The
next move was the formal deposition of Athanasius by a council held at
Antioch in the winter of 338. But there was still no charge of
heresy--only old and new ones of sedition and intrigue, and a new
argument, that after his deposition at Tyre he had forfeited all right
to further justice by accepting a restoration from the civil power. This
last was quite a new claim on behalf of the church, first used against
Athanasius, and next afterwards for the ruin of Chrysostom, though it
has since been made a pillar of the faith. Pistus was not appointed to
the vacant see. The council chose Gregory of Cappadocia as a better
agent for the rough work to be done. Athanasius was expelled by the
apostate prefect Philagrius, and Gregory installed by military violence
in his place. Scenes of outrage were enacted all over Egypt.
[Sidenote: Athanasius and Marcellus at Rome.]
Athanasius fled to Rome. Thither also came Marcellus of Ancyra, and
ejected clerics from all parts of the East. Under the rule of Constans
they might meet with justice. Bishop Julius at once took the position of
an arbiter of Christendom. He received the fugitives with a decent
reserve, and invited the Eusebians to the council they had already asked
him to hold. For a long time there came no answer from the East. The old
heretic Carpones appeared at Rome on Gregory's behalf, but the envoys of
Julius were detained at Antioch till January 340, and at last dismissed
with an unmannerly reply. After some further delay, a synod of about
fifty bishops met at Rome the following autumn. The cases were examined,
Marcellus and Athanasius acquitted, and it remained for Julius to report
their decision to the Easterns.
[Sidenote: The letter of Julius.]
His letter is one of the ablest documents of the entire controversy.
Nothing can be better than the calm and high judicial tone in which he
lays open every excuse of the Eusebians. He was surprised, he says, to
receive so discourteous an answer to his letter. But what was their
grievance? If it was his invitation to a synod, they could not have much
confidence in their cause. Even the great council of Nicæa had decided
(and not without the will of God) that the acts of one synod might be
revised by another. Their own envoys had asked him to hold a council,
and the men who set aside the decisions of Nicæa by using the services
of heretics like Secundus, Pistus and Carpones could hardly claim
finality for their own doings at Tyre. Their complaint that he had given
them too short a notice would have been reasonable if the appointed day
had found them on the road to Rome. 'But this also, beloved, is only an
excuse.' They had detained his envoys for months at Antioch, and plainly
did not mean to come. As for the reception of Athanasius, it was neither
lightly nor unjustly done. The Eusebian letters against him were
inconsistent, for no two of them ever told the same story; and they
were, moreover, contradicted by letters in his favour from Egypt and
elsewhere. The accused had come to Rome when summoned, and waited for
them eighteen months in vain, whereas the Eusebians had uncanonically
appointed an utter stranger in his place at Alexandria, and sent him
with a guard of soldiers all the way from Antioch to disturb the peace
of Egypt with horrible outrages. With regard to Marcellus, he had denied
the charge of heresy and presented a very sound confession of his faith.
The Roman legates at Nicæa had also borne witness to the honourable part
he had taken in the council. Thus the Eusebians could not say that
Athanasius and Marcellus had been too hastily received at Rome. Rather
their own doings were the cause of all the troubles, for complaints of
their violence came in from all parts of the East. The authors of these
outrages were no lovers of peace, but of confusion. Whatever grievance
they might have against Athanasius, they should not have neglected the
old custom of writing first to Rome, that a legitimate decision might
issue from the apostolic see. It was time to put an end to these
scandals, as they would have to answer for them in the day of judgment.
[Sidenote: Criticism of it.]
Severe as the letter is, it contrasts well with the disingenuous
querulousness of the Eusebians. Nor is Julius unmindful to press as far
as possible the claims of the Roman see. His one serious mistake was in
supporting Marcellus. No doubt old services at Nicæa counted heavily in
the West. His confession too was innocent enough, being very nearly our
so-called Apostles' Creed, here met for the first time in history.[12]
Knowing, however, what his doctrine was, we must admit that the Easterns
were right in resenting its deliberate approval at Rome.
[Footnote 12: It has even been ascribed to Marcellus; but it seems a
little older. Its apostolic origin is of course absurd. The legend
cannot be traced beyond the last quarter of the fourth century.]
[Sidenote: Council of the dedication at Antioch (341).]
The Eusebians replied in the summer of 341, when ninety bishops met at
Antioch to consecrate the Golden Church, begun by Constantine. The
character of the council is an old question of dispute. Hilary calls it
a meeting of saints, and its canons have found their way into the
authoritative collections; yet its chief work was to confirm the
deposition of Athanasius and to draw up creeds in opposition to the
Nicene. Was it Nicene or Arian? Probably neither, but conservative. The
Eusebians seem to have imitated Athanasius in pressing a creed (this
time an Arianizing one) on unwilling conservatives, but only to have
succeeded in making great confusion. This was a new turn of their
policy, and not a hopeful one. Constantine's death indeed left them free
to try if they could replace the Nicene creed by something else; but the
friends of Athanasius could accept no substitute, and even the
conservatives could hardly agree to make the Lord's divinity an open
question. The result was twenty years of busy creed-making, and twenty
more of confusion, before it was finally seen that there was no escape
from the dilemma which had been decisive at Nicæa.
[Sidenote: The Lucianic creed (second of Antioch).]
The Eusebians began by offering a meagre and evasive creed, much like
the confession of Arius and Euzoius, prefacing it with a declaration
that they were not followers of Arius, but his independent adherents.
They overshot their mark, for the conservatives were not willing to go
so far as this, and, moreover, had older standards of their own.
Instead, therefore, of drawing up a new creed, they put forward a work
of the venerated martyr Lucian of Antioch. Such it was said to be, and
such in the main it probably was, though the anathemas must have been
added now. This Lucianic formula then is essentially conservative, but
leans much more to the Nicene than to the Arian side. Its central clause
declares the Son of God 'not subject to moral change or alteration, but
the unvarying image of the deity and essence and power and counsel and
glory of the Father,' while its anathemas condemn 'those who say that
there was once _a time_ when the Son of God was not, or that he is a
creature _as one of the creatures_.' These are strong words, but they do
not in the least shut out Arianism. No doubt the phrase 'unvarying image
of the essence' means that there is no change of essence in passing from
the Father to the Son, and is therefore logically equivalent to 'of one
essence' (_homoousion_); but the conservatives meant nothing more than
'of like essence' (_homoiousion_), which is consistent with great
unlikeness in attributes. The anathemas also are the Nicene with
insertions which might have been made for the very purpose of letting
the Arians escape. However, the conservatives were well satisfied with
the Lucianic creed, and frequently refer to it with a veneration akin to
that of Athanasius for the Nicene. But the wire-pullers were determined
to upset it. The confession next presented by Theophronius of Tyana was
more to their mind, for it contained a direct anathema against
"Marcellus and those who communicated with him." It secured a momentary
approval, but the meeting broke up without adopting it. The Lucianic
formula remained the creed of the council.
[Sidenote: The fourth creed.]
Defeated in a free council, the wire-pullers a few months later
assembled a cabal of their own, and drew up a fourth creed, which a
deputation of notorious Arianizers presented to Constans in Gaul as the
genuine work of the council. It seems to have suited them better than
the Lucianic, for they repeated it with increasing series of anathemas
at Philippopolis in 343, at Antioch the next year, and at Sirmium in
351. We can see why it suited them. While in substance it is less
opposed to Arianism than the Lucianic, its wording follows the Nicene,
even to the adoption of the anathemas in a weakened form. Upon the
whole, it is a colourless document, which left all questions open.
[Sidenote: Constans demands a council.]
The wording of the creed of Tyana was a direct blow at Julius of Rome,
and is of itself enough to show that its authors were no lovers of
peace. But Western suspicion was already roused by the issue of the
Lucianic creed. There could no longer be any doubt that the Nicene faith
was the real object of attack. Before the Eastern envoys reached
Constans in Gaul, he had already written to his brother (Constantine II.
was now dead) to demand a new general council. Constantius was busy with
the Persian war, and could not refuse; so it was summoned to meet in the
summer of 343. To the dismay of the Eusebians, the place chosen was
Sardica in Dacia, just inside the dominions of Constans. After their
failure with the Eastern bishops at Antioch, they could not hope to
control the Westerns in a free council.
[Sidenote: Council of Sardica (343).]
To Sardica the bishops came. The Westerns were about ninety-six in
number, 'with Hosius of Cordova for their father,' bringing with him
Athanasius and Marcellus, and supported by the chief Westerns--Gratus of
Carthage, Protasius of Milan, Maximus of Trier, Fortunatian of Aquileia,
and Vincent of Capua, the old Roman legate at Nicæa. The Easterns, under
Stephen of Antioch and Acacius of Cæsarea, the disciple and successor of
Eusebius, were for once outnumbered. They therefore travelled in one
body, more than seventy strong, and agreed to act together. They began
by insisting that the deposition of Marcellus and Athanasius at Antioch
should be accepted without discussion. Such a demand was absurd. There
was no reason why the deposition at Antioch should be accepted blindly
rather than the acquittal at Rome. At any rate, the council had an
express commission to re-open the whole case, and indeed had met for no
other purpose; so, if they were not to do it, they might as well go
home. The Westerns were determined to sift the whole matter to the
bottom, but the Eusebians refused to enter the council. It was in vain
that Hosius asked them to give their proofs, if it were only to himself
in private. In vain he promised that if Athanasius was acquitted, and
they were still unwilling to receive him, he would take him back with
him to Spain. The Westerns began the trial: the Easterns left Sardica by
night in haste. They had heard, forsooth, of a victory on the Persian
frontier, and must pay their respects to the Emperor without a moment's
delay.
[Sidenote: Acquittal of Marcellus and Athanasius.]
Once more the charges were examined and the accused acquitted. In the
case of Marcellus, it was found that the Eusebians had misquoted his
book, setting down opinions as his own which he had only put forward for
discussion. Thus it was not true that he had denied the eternity of the
Word in the past or of his kingdom in the future. Quite so: but the
eternity of the Sonship is another matter. This was the real charge
against him, and he was allowed to evade it. Though doctrinal questions
lay more in the background in the case of Athanasius, one party in the
council was for issuing a new creed in explanation of the Nicene. The
proposal was wisely rejected. It would have made the fatal admission
that Arianism had not been clearly condemned at Nicæa, and thrown on the
Westerns the odium of innovation. All that could be done was to pass a
series of canons to check the worst scandals of late years. After this
the council issued its encyclical and the bishops dispersed.
[Sidenote: Rival council of Philippopolis.]
Meanwhile the Easterns (such was their haste) halted for some weeks at
Philippopolis to issue their own encyclical, falsely dating it from
Sardica. They begin with their main argument, that the acts of councils
are irreversible. Next they recite the charges against Athanasius and
Marcellus, and the doings of the Westerns at Sardica. Hereupon they
denounce Hosius, Julius, and others as associates of heretics and
patrons of the detestable errors of Marcellus. A few random charges of
gross immorality are added, after the Eusebian custom. They end with a
new creed, the fourth of Antioch, with some verbal changes, and seven
anathemas instead of two.
[Sidenote: The fifth creed of Antioch (344).]
The quarrel of East and West seemed worse than ever. The Eusebians had
behaved discreditably enough, but they had at least frustrated the
council, and secured a recognition of their creed from a large body of
Eastern conservatives. So far they had been fairly successful, but the
next move on their side was a blunder and worse. When the Sardican
envoys, Vincent of Capua and Euphrates of Cologne, came eastward in the
spring of 344, a harlot was brought one night into their lodgings. Great
was the scandal when the plot was traced up to the Eusebian leader,
Stephen of Antioch. A new council was held, by which Stephen was deposed
and Leontius the Lucianist, himself the subject of an old scandal, was
raised to the vacant see. The fourth creed of Antioch was also re-issued
with a few changes, but followed by long paragraphs of explanation. The
Easterns adhered to their condemnation of Marcellus, and joined with him
his disciple Photinus of Sirmium, who had made the Lord a mere man like
the Ebionites. On the other hand, they condemned several Arian phrases,
and insisted in the strongest manner on the mutual, inseparable, and, as
it were, organic union of the Son with the Father in a single deity.
[Sidenote: Return of Athanasius (Oct. 346).]
This conciliatory move cleared the way for a general suspension of
hostilities. Stephen's crime had discredited the whole gang of Eastern
court intriguers who had made the quarrel. Nor were the Westerns
unreasonable. Though they still upheld Marcellus, they frankly gave up
and condemned Photinus. Meanwhile Constans pressed the execution of the
decrees of Sardica, and Constantius, with a Persian war on his hands,
could not refuse. The last obstacle was removed by the death of Gregory
of Cappadocia in 345. It was not till the third invitation that
Athanasius returned. He had to take leave of his Italian friends, and
the Emperor's letters were only too plainly insincere. However,
Constantius received him graciously at Antioch, ordered all the charges
against him to be destroyed, and gave him a solemn promise of full
protection for the future. Athanasius went forward on his journey, and
the old confessor Maximus assembled the bishops of Palestine to greet
him at Jerusalem. But his entry into Alexandria (Oct. 346) was the
crowning triumph of his life. For miles along the road the great city
streamed out to meet him with enthusiastic welcome, and the jealous
police of Constantius could raise no tumult to mar the universal harmony
of that great day of national rejoicing.
[Sidenote: Interval of rest (346-353.)]
The next few years were an uneasy interval of suspense rather than of
peace, for the long contest had so far decided nothing. If the Nicene
exiles were restored, the Eusebian disturbers were not deposed. Thus
while Nicene animosity was not satisfied, the standing grounds of
conservative distrust were not removed. Above all, the return of
Athanasius was a personal humiliation for Constantius, which he was not
likely to accept without watching his opportunity for a final struggle
to decide the mastery of Egypt. Still there was tolerable quiet for the
present. The court intriguers could do nothing without the Emperor, and
Constantius was occupied first with the Persian war, then with the civil
war against Magnentius. If there was not peace, there was a fair amount
of quiet till the Emperor's hands were freed by the death of Magnentius
in 353.
[Sidenote: Modification of Nicene position.]
The truce was hollow and the rest precarious, but the mere cessation of
hostilities was not without its influence. As Nicenes and conservatives
were fundamentally agreed on the reality of the Lord's divinity, minor
jealousies began to disappear when they were less busily encouraged. The
Eusebian phase of conservatism, which emphasised the Lord's personal
distinction from the Father, was giving way to the Semiarian, where
stress was rather laid on his essential likeness to the Father. Thus 'of
a like essence' (_homoiousion_) and 'like in all things' became more and
more the watchwords of conservatism. The Nicenes, on the other side,
were warned by the excesses of Marcellus that there was some reason for
the conservative dread of the Nicene 'of one essence' (_homoousion_) as
Sabellian. The word could not be withdrawn, but it might be put forward
less conspicuously, and explained rather as a safe and emphatic form of
the Semiarian 'of like essence' than as a rival doctrine. Henceforth it
came to mean absolute likeness of attributes rather than common
possession of the divine essence. Thus by the time the war is renewed,
we can already foresee the possibility of a new alliance between Nicenes
and conservatives.
[Sidenote: Rise of Anomoeans.]
We see also the rise of a new and more defiant Arian school, more in
earnest than the older generation, impatient of their shuffling
diplomacy and less pliant to court influences. Aetius was a man of
learning and no small dialectic skill, who had passed through many
troubles in his earlier life and been the disciple of several scholars,
mostly of the Lucianic school, before he came to rest in a clear and
simple form of Arianism. Christianity without mystery seems to have been
his aim. The Anomoean leaders took their stand on the doctrine of
Arius himself, and dwelt with most emphasis on its most offensive
aspects. Arius had long ago laid down the absolute unlikeness of the Son
to the Father, but for years past the Arianizers had prudently softened
it down. Now, however, 'unlike' became the watchword of Aetius and
Eunomius, and their followers delighted to shock all sober feeling by
the harshest and profanest declarations of it. The scandalous jests of
Eudoxius must have given deep offence to thousands; but the great
novelty of the Anomoean doctrine was its audacious self-sufficiency.
Seeing that Arius was illogical in regarding the divine nature as
incomprehensible, and yet reasoning as if its relations were fully
explained by human types, the Anomoeans boldly declared that it is no
mystery at all. If the divine essence is simple, man can perfectly
understand it. 'Canst thou by searching find out God?' Yes, and know him
quite as well as he knows me. Such was the new school of
Arianism--presumptuous and shallow, quarrelsome and heathenising, yet
not without a directness and a firmness of conviction which gives it a
certain dignity in spite of its wrangling and irreverence. Its
conservative allies it despised for their wavering and insincerity; to
its Nicene opponents it repaid hatred for hatred, and flung back with
retorted scorn their denial of its right to bear the Christian name.
[Sidenote: Illustration from the state of: (1.) Jerusalem.]
We may now glance at the state of the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch
during the years of rest. Jerusalem had been a resort of pilgrims since
the days of Origen, and Helena's visit shortly after the Nicene council
had fully restored it to the dignity of a holy place. We still have the
itinerary of a nameless pilgrim who found his way from Bordeaux to
Palestine in 333. The great church, however, of the Resurrection, which
Constantine built on Golgotha, was only dedicated by the council of 335.
The _Catecheses_ of Cyril are a series of sermons on the creed,
delivered to the catechumens of that church in 348. If it is not a work
of any great originality, it will show us all the better what was
passing in the minds of men of practical and simple piety, who had no
taste for the controversies of the day. All through it we see the
earnest pastor who feels that his strength is needed to combat the
practical immoralities of a holy city (Jerusalem was a scandal of the
age), and never lifts his eyes to the wild scene of theological
confusion round him but in fear and dread that Antichrist is near. 'I
fear the wars of the nations; I fear the divisions of the churches; I
fear the mutual hatred of the brethren. Enough concerning this. God
forbid it come to pass in our days; yet let us be on our guard. Enough
concerning Antichrist.' Jews, Samaritans, and Manichees are his chief
opponents; yet he does not forget to warn his hearers against the
teaching of Sabellius and Marcellus, 'the dragon's head of late arisen
in Galatia.' Arius he sometimes contradicts in set terms, though without
naming him. Of the Nicenes too, we hear nothing directly, but they seem
glanced at in the complaint that whereas in former times heresy was
open, the church is now full of secret heretics. The Nicene creed again
he never mentions, but we cannot mistake the allusion when he tells his
hearers that their own Jerusalem creed was not put together by the will
of men, and impresses on them that every word of it can be proved by
Scripture. But the most significant feature of his language is its close
relation to that of the dated creed of Sirmium in 359. Nearly every
point where the latter differs from the Lucianic is one specially
emphasized by Cyril. If then the Lucianic creed represents the earlier
conservatism, it follows that Cyril expresses the later views which had
to be conciliated in 359.
[Sidenote: (2.) Antioch.]
The condition of Antioch under Leontius (344-357) is equally
significant. The Nicene was quite as strong in the city as Arianism had
ever been at Alexandria. The Eustathians formed a separate and strongly
Nicene congregation under the presbyter Paulinus, and held their
meetings outside the walls. Athanasius communicated with them on his
return from exile, and agreed to give the Arians a church in Alexandria,
as Constantius desired, if only the Eustathians were allowed one inside
the walls of Antioch. His terms were prudently declined, for the Arians
were a minority even in the congregation of Leontius. The old Arian
needed all his caution to avoid offence. 'When this snow melts,'
touching his white head, 'there will be much mud.' Nicenes and Arians
made a slight difference in the doxology; and Leontius always dropped
his voice at the critical point, so that nobody knew what he said. This
policy was successful in keeping out of the Eustathian communion not
only the indifferent multitude, but also many whose sympathies were
clearly Nicene, like the future bishops Meletius and Flavian. But they
always considered him an enemy, and the more dangerous for the contrast
of his moderation with the reckless violence of Macedonius at
Constantinople. His appointments were Arianizing, and he gave deep
offence by the ordination of his old disciple, the detested Aetius. So
great was the outcry that Leontius was forced to suspend him. The
opposition was led by two ascetic laymen, Flavian and Diodorus, who both
became distinguished bishops in later time. Orthodox feeling was
nourished by a vigorous use of hymns and by all-night services at the
tombs of the martyrs. As such practices often led to great abuses,
Leontius may have had nothing more in view than good order when he
directed the services to be transferred to the church.
[Sidenote: State of parties.]
The case of Antioch was not exceptional. Arians and Nicenes were still
parties inside the church rather than distant sects. They still used the
same prayers and the same hymns, still worshipped in the same buildings,
still commemorated the same saints and martyrs, and still considered
themselves members of the same church. The example of separation set by
the Eustathians at Antioch and the Arians at Alexandria was not followed
till a later stage of the controversy, when Diodorus and Flavian on one
side, and the Anomoeans on the other, began to introduce their own
peculiarities into the service. And if the bitterness of intestine
strife was increased by a state of things which made every bishop a
party nominee, there was some compensation in the free intercourse of
parties afterwards separated by barriers of persecution. Nicenes and
Arians in most places mingled freely long after Leontius was dead, and
the Novatians of Constantinople threw open their churches to the victims
of Macedonius in a way which drew his persecution on themselves, and was
remembered in their favour even in the next century by liberal men like
the historian Socrates.