gn of Julian, yet
slight tempests sometimes beat upon them in certain places. Athanaric,
for instance, a king of the Goths, fiercely assailed for a time that
portion of the Gothic nation which had embraced Christianity. In the
more remote provinces, also, the adherents to idolatry often defended
their hereditary superstitions with the sword, and murdered the
Christians, who in propagating their religion were not always as gentle
or as prudent as they ought to have been. Beyond the limits of the Roman
Empire, Sapor II, the king of Persia, waged three bloody wars against
the Christians in his dominions. The first was in the eighteenth year of
his reign; the second was in the thirtieth year; and the third, which
was the most cruel and destroyed an immense number of Christians,
commenced in his thirty-first year, A.D. 330, and lasted forty years, or
till A.D. 370. Yet religion was not the ostensible cause of this
dreadful persecution, but a suspicion of treasonable practices among the
Christians; for the Magi and the Jews persuaded the King to believe that
all Christians were in the interests of the Roman Empire.

FIRST NICENE COUNCIL

RISE AND DECLINE OF ARIANISM

A.D. 325

J. L. VON MOSHEIM A. P. STANLEY

Controversies in the Christian Church concerning the mystery of the
Trinity began in the second century, prior to which the word
trinity--a term not found in the Scriptures--had scarcely been used
in Christian writings. It was prominently introduced by theologians
of the second century, who employed new metaphysical methods in
their attempts to explain the divine nature. The dispute turned
upon the questions whether Christ was God or man or an intermediate
being, whether or not he was created, and like inquiries. Arius, a
deacon of Alexandria, early in the fourth century, held that Christ
was a created being, though superior to all other created beings.
The Son, he maintained, is of a nature similar to--not the same
as--that of the Father, to whom the Son is subordinate. This heresy
obtained such currency in the Church that, in 321, a provincial
synod at Alexandria excommunicated Arius, who in his learned
writings had set them forth since 318. Once started among the
people, the controversy begun in the schools became very bitter,
and in many of the churches partisans of the heretical view
equalled in number those of