cussion was to define the position of "the Son." There lived in
Alexandria a presbyter of the name of Arius, a disappointed candidate
for the office of bishop. He took the ground that there was a time when,
from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at
which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition
of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But
this assertion evidently denied the coeternity of the three persons of
the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them,
and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist. Hereupon, the
bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius, displayed
his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife
spreading, the Jews and pagans, who formed a very large portion of
the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical
representations of the contest on the stage--the point of their
burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son.

Such was the violence the controversy at length assumed, that the matter
had to be referred to the emperor. At first he looked upon the dispute
as altogether frivolous, and perhaps in truth inclined to the assertion
of Arius, that in the very nature of the thing a father must be older
than his son. So great, however, was the pressure laid upon him, that
he was eventually compelled to summon the Council of Nicea, which, to
dispose of the conflict, set forth a formulary or creed, and attached to
it this anathema: "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." Constantine at once enforced the decision of
the council by the civil power.

A few years subsequently the Emperor Theodosius prohibited sacrifices,
made the inspection of the entrails of animals a capital offense, and
forbade any one entering a temple. He instituted Inquisitors of Faith,
and ordained that all who did not accord with the belief of Damasus, the
Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, should be driven
into exile, and deprived of civil rights. Those who presumed to
celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews, he condemned to death.
The Greek language was now ceasing to be known in the West,