presbyters. Accordingly the Emperor called him to
Constantinople, in the year 336, and ordered Alexander, the bishop of
that city, to open the doors of his church to him. But before that could
take place Arius died at Constantinople in a tragical manner;[49] and
the Emperor himself closed life shortly after.

After the death of Constantine the Great, one of his sons, Constantius,
the Emperor of the East, with his wife and his court, was very partial
to the Arian cause, but Constantine and Constans supported in the
western parts, where they governed, the decisions of the Nicene Council.
Hence the broils, the commotions, the plots, the injuries had neither
measure nor bounds, and on both sides councils were assembled to oppose
councils. Constans died in the year 350, and two years afterward a great
part of the West, particularly Italy and Rome, came under the dominion
of his brother Constantius. This revolution was most disastrous to the
friends of the Nicene Council; for this Emperor, being devoted to the
Arians, involved the others in numerous evils and calamities, and by
threats and punishments compelled many of them to apostatize to that
sect to which he was himself attached. The Nicene party made no
hesitation to return the same treatment as soon as time, place, and
opportunity were afforded them, and the history of Christianity under
Constantius presents the picture of a most stormy period, and of a war
among brethren which was carried on without religion or justice or
humanity.

On the death of Constantius, in the year 362, the prosperous days of the
Arians were at an end. Julian had no partiality for either, and
therefore patronized neither the Arians nor the orthodox. Jovian
espoused the orthodox sentiments, and therefore all the West, with no
small part of the East, rejecting Arian views, reverted to the doctrines
of the Nicene Council. But the scene was changed under the two brothers
Valentinian and Valens, who were advanced to the government of the
Empire in the year 364. Valentinian adhered to the decisions at Nice,
and therefore in the West the Arian sect, a few churches excepted, was
wholly extirpated. Valens, on the contrary, took sides with the Arians,
and hence in the eastern provinces many calamities befell the orthodox.
But when this Emperor had fallen in a war with the Goths, A.D. 378,
Gratian--who succeeded Valentinian in the West, in the year 376, and
became master of the whole empire in 378--rest