ians would be
compelled to refuse to sign it, and so ruin themselves. To the creed was
attached an anathema precisely defining the point of dispute, and
leaving the foreordained victims no chance of escape. The original
Nicene Creed differed in some essential particulars from that now
current under that title. Among other things, the fatal and final clause
has been dropped. Thus it ran: "The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church
anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God
was not; and that before he was begotten he was not, and that he was
made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is
created, or changeable, or alterable." The emperor enforced the decision
of the council by the civil power; he circulated letters denouncing
Arius, and initiated those fearful punishments unhappily destined in
future ages to become so frequent, by ordaining that whoever should find
one of the books of Arius and not burn it should actually be put to
death.

[Sidenote: Arius received again into court favour,]

[Sidenote: and is poisoned.]

It might be thought that, after such a decisive course, it would be
impossible to change, and yet in less than ten years Constantine is
found agreeing with the convict Arius. A presbyter in the confidence of
Constantia, the emperor's sister, had wrought upon him. Athanasius, now
Bishop of Alexandria, the representative of the other party, is deposed
and banished. Arius is invited to Constantinople. The emperor orders
Alexander, the bishop of that city, to receive him into communion
to-morrow. It is Saturday. Alexander flees to the church, and, falling
prostrate, prays to God that he will interpose and save his servant from
being forced into this sin, even if it should be by death. That same
evening Arius was seized with a sudden and violent illness as he passed
along the street, and in a few moments he was found dead in a house,
whither he had hastened. In Constantinople, where men were familiar with
Asiatic crimes, there was more than a suspicion of poison. But when
Alexander's party proclaimed that his prayer had been answered, they
forgot what then that prayer must have been, and that the difference is
little between praying for the death of a man and compassing it.

[Sidenote: Constantine prepares for a new creed.]

The Arians affirmed that it was the intention of Constantine to have
called a new council, and have the creed rectified according to his mo