nothing; or, who say that the Son of God is of another substance, or essence, or is created, or mutable, or changeable, are anathematized by the Catholic and Apostolic Church."

Seventeen Arianizing bishops objected to sign the Creed. Eusebius of Cæsarea was among them; but after some consideration he gave way, on grounds which cannot be called satisfactory as regards his personal faith. The phrases anathematized, he remarked, "were not in Scripture, and had caused confusion;" that was all, it appeared, that he had to say against them. Others also yielded under menace of civil penalties-for the Emperor was resolved to enforce unity; until at last only five were left, Eusebius of Nicomedia, Maris of Chalcedon, Theognis of Nicæa, Secundus, and Theonas. Maris then signed; Eusebius and Theognis followed; Secundus and Theonas stood firm, and were condemned with Arius, and with two of his friends, Pistus and Euzoius. Illyria was their place of exile.

The case of the Meletians was very gently handled. "In strictness," as the bishops said, "Meletius deserved no favour;" but he was admitted to communion, and allowed to retain the title without the powers of a bishop. His clergy, after the canonical defects in their ordination were supplied, were to rank after the clergy of Alexander.

a

A strong feeling against Judaic tendencies was exhibited in the settlement of the Pasehal question. All Catholics. were to keep Easter on the Sunday after the full moon following the 21st of March. It was then that Constantine

> Soc. i. 8.

z Philostorgius, the Arian, tells us that they privately inserted an iota, so you will as to make Homoiousion, 'like in essence:' that Secundus afterwards said, 'Eusebius, you signed to avoid exile; I am confident in God that be exiled within the year,"-which came to pass. This, however, looks like a story invented for the honour of a thorough-going Arian.

66

a Soc. i. 9.

It seems to have been arranged that every year the bishop of Alexanthe right day by means of Egyptian science, and

asked the Novatian bishop whether he would accept Creed and this Paschal rule. "O Emperor," replied sius, "the Council has determined nothing new. Paschal rule and the definition of faith agree with w "Why, have learned by tradition from the apostles." do you not join the Church ?" Acesius answered by rating the origin of his sect in the Decian persecu "I must hold to the rule which denies absolution to who sin mortally after baptism. God may forgive then not through the priesthood." Constantine replied, then, set up a ladder for yourself, and ascend to h alone."

The Nicene Council passed twenty canons, which w found in the Appendix. A synodal letter d was add to the Egyptian and Libyan Churches, recounting wh been done, praising the venerable Alexander, and co ing thus: Pray for us all, that what we have th good to determine may remain inviolate, through G mighty, and through our Lord Jesus Christ, with the Amen." Spirit, to whom be glory for evermore.

Ultimately this prayer was granted to the full: and the Council's loyalty to inherited faith which secured a position of such unrivalled majesty. When its s were closed on the 25th of August, individual Ca might still have much to suffer, but the cause of the lic faith was won.

CHAPTER II.

From the Council of Nicea to the Council of Sardica.

"Great Athanasius! beaten by wild breath

Of calumny, of exile, and of wrong,

Thou wert familiar grown with frowning death,
Looking him in the face all thy life long,

Till thou and he were friends, and thou wert strong."

WILLIAMS, Cathedral.

IT is a beautiful tradition of the Armenian Church, that on the return of Aristaces, Gregory the Illuminator received the Nicene Creed with this doxology; "Yea, we glorify Him who was before all ages, adoring the Holy Trinity, and the one only Divinity of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, now and ever, through ages of ages. Amena."

These words might well express the joy with which the great majority of Churches would welcome the august confession when announced to them by their chief pastors. It was to them, doubtless, the full utterance of that simple faith in Christ's true Godhead, which had ever lain close to the heart of the Church-had filled her rude old hymns with majesty, had burst in broken words from the lips of her martyrs, had kindled her abhorrence of "a God-denying apostasy," and prompted the heathen sarcasms against her worship of a crucified God. They were deeply conscious of the truth which has been admirably brought out by a living writer, that this Nicene faith" alone is an entire belief, of which all the elements are in unison; in which is proportion and symmetry, grandeur and simplicity; which fully realizes whatever is true in human nature, and whatever we may conceive of as proper to the Divine natured." In several

a This is still sung after the Creed in the Armenian Liturgy. See Neale's Introd. i. 418; Chr. Rememb. xxxiii. 357.

b Euseb. iii. 33;
v. 28.

the doctrine of Theodotus, that Christ was a mere

parts of Palestine, which had been under the influence Arianizers, the feeling would be different; and in Ga where the Church knew nothing of heresy, the necessity the Creed was not felt, and for years it was very li

For the present, the Catholics appeared secure of C stantine. What he cared for, indeed, was not truth, peace; and as he had failed to establish peace by in ferentism, he was ready now to establish it by persecuti and he made it a capital crime to retain any writing Arius, whom he denominated a second Porphyryf. S time after the Council, Eusebius of Nicomedia and Theo were condemned and banished for communicating with h tics, and Constantine wrote a violent letter to the N medians, denouncing Eusebius for civil as well as spiri offences 1.

Alexander, on returning home, carried out the decr the Council respecting Meletius, but required of him a logue of the bishops and clergy of his party. Meletius sonally gave in a listi, including himself with twentyother bishops, and a small number of priests and deac and in this paper we find the title of "Archbishop." shortly after, when on his deathbed, the incorrigible s matic named as his successori one of the bishops in his logue; and this John, who was surnamed Arcaph, be a second head of the schism which thus broke forth a The aged Alexander died within five months after An Council. It is said that in his last moments he calle Athanasius k. The great deacon was absent. Athanasius answered, "Here am I." The Archbisho stead of addressing him, exclaimed again, "Athanas

Soc i. 9. Porphyry, or Malchus, was born in 233; heard Ploti
in Sicily: aud died at Rome in 30

adding at last, "You think you have escaped-but you will not escape." The words were taken for a prophecy.

This year 326 is celebrated for the proceedings of Constantine's pious mother Helena at Jerusalem. She was nearly eighty years old, and had been fifteen years a Christian, when she journeyed to the land which all Christian instincts have called holy. Guided by the local tradition to the place of Christ's burial, she ordered the mound of earth which either Hadrian', or some other enemy of Christianity, had raised over the sepulchral cave, to be cleared away; demolishing the temple of Venus which stood on its summit. The obstructions being removed, the "monument of the resurrection" came to light. This is substantially all that Eusebius tells us. But S. Cyril of Jerusalem, writing in 347, implies", and in a letter to Constantius, if that be genuine, asserts, that the cross on which salvation was wrought was found at the same time with the sepulchre. S. Jerome, in 386, tells us that it was kissed by pilgrims": S. Chrysostom, about 394, says that the cross had been buried, and was discovered lying between two other crosses P; S. Ambrose, in 395, says that Helena, finding three crosses, "adored not the wood, but the King that had hung upon it." These two latter fathers tell us, that the holy cross was distinguished from the others by its title; later writers say, by its miraculous effects г. The silence of Eusebius is

1 Hadrian is named by S. Jerome, Ep. 58. Euseb. V. C. iii. 26, says "certain godless men."

Eus. V. C. iii. 28. He ascribes the work to Constantine: probably because it had his full approval.

■ Catech. iv. 10, x. 19, xiii. 4, speaking of the wood of the cross as existing, and as having been distributed piecemeal,

• Ep. 46. See also Ep. 108.

P Hom. 85 in Joh. Orat. in ob. Theod. 43-48. He also says, as do Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, that two nails were found.

Sulp. Ser. ii. 61, says that a corpse was revived by the touch of one of the crosses. Ruff. i. 7, Soc. i. 17, and Soz. ii. 1, that Macarius, the bishop, and aach of the crosses to be applied to a dving woman.