ineffable generation of the
_Logos_.... He governed the universe in obedience to the will of his
Father and Monarch" (Ibid, pp. 18,19). The "Nicene creed" of the
Prayer-book consists of the creed promulgated by the Council of Nice,
with the anathema at the end omitted, and with the addition of some
phrases joined to it at the Council at Constantinople, and the insertion
of the Filioque. At the Council of Nice, Arius was condemned and
banished, to the triumph of his great opponent, Athanasius; but he was
recalled in A.D. 330, obtained the banishment of Athanasius in A.D. 335,
and died suddenly, under very suspicious circumstances, in A.D. 336.
Throughout this century the struggle proceeded furiously, each party in
turn getting the upper hand, as the emperor of the time inclined towards
Catholicism or towards Arianism, and each persecuting the adherents of
the other. Among Arian subdivisions we find Semi-Arians, Eusebians,
Aetians, Eunomians, Acasians, Psathyrians, etc. Then we have the
Apollinarians, who maintained that Christ had no human soul, the
divinity supplying its place; the Marcellians, who taught that a divine
emanation descended on Christ. Allied to the Manichaean heresy were the
Priscillians, the Saccophori, the Solitaries, and many others; and, in
addition, the Messalians or Euchites, the Luciferians, the Origenists,
the Antidicomarianites, and the Collyridians. A quarrel about the
consecration of a bishop gave rise to fierce struggles not connected
with the doctrine, so much as with the discipline of the Church. The
Bishops of Numidia were angered by not having been called to the
consecration of Caecilianus Bishop of Carthage, and, assembling together,
they elected and consecrated a rival bishop to that see, and declared
Caecilianus incompetent for the episcopal office. Donatus, Bishop of Casa
Nigra, was the foremost of these Numidian malcontents, and from him the
sect of Donatists took its name; they denied the orders of those
ordained by Caecilianus, and hence the validity of the Sacraments
administered by them. Excommunicated themselves, "they boldly
excommunicated the rest of mankind who had embraced the impious party of
Caecilianus, and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended
ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation,
that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that _all_ the bishops
of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism,
and