evour the unhappy wanderer. But as the degrees of
theological hatred depend on the spirit of the war, rather than on the
importance of the controversy, the heretics who degraded, were treated
with more severity than those who annihilated, the person of the Son.
The life of Athanasius was consumed in irreconcilable opposition to the
impious madness of the Arians; [61] but he defended above twenty
years the Sabellianism of Marcellus of Ancyra; and when at last he
was compelled to withdraw himself from his communion, he continued to
mention, with an ambiguous smile, the venial errors of his respectable
friend. [62]

[Footnote 55: The transactions of the council of Nice are related by the
ancients, not only in a partial, but in a very imperfect manner. Such a
picture as Fra Paolo would have drawn, can never be recovered; but such
rude sketches as have been traced by the pencil of bigotry, and that of
reason, may be seen in Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. v. p. 669-759,) and
in Le Clerc, (Bibliotheque Universelle, tom. x p. 435-454.)]

[Footnote 56: We are indebted to Ambrose (De Fide, l. iii.) knowledge
of this curious anecdote. Hoc verbum quod viderunt adversariis esse
formidini; ut ipsis gladio, ipsum nefandae caput haereseos.]

[Footnote 57: See Bull, Defens. Fid. Nicen. sect. ii. c. i. p. 25-36. He
thinks it his duty to reconcile two orthodox synods.]

[Footnote 58: According to Aristotle, the stars were homoousian to each
other. "That Homoousios means of one substance in kind, hath been shown
by Petavius, Curcellaeus, Cudworth, Le Clerc, &c., and to prove it would
be actum agere." This is the just remark of Dr. Jortin, (vol. ii p.
212,) who examines the Arian controversy with learning, candor, and
ingenuity.]

[Footnote 59: See Petavius, (Dogm. Theolog. tom. ii. l. iv. c. 16, p.
453, &c.,) Cudworth, (p. 559,) Bull, (sect. iv. p. 285-290, edit.
Grab.) The circumincessio, is perhaps the deepest and darkest he whole
theological abyss.]

[Footnote 60: The third section of Bull's Defence of the Nicene Faith,
which some of his antagonists have called nonsense, and others heresy,
is consecrated to the supremacy of the Father.]

[Footnote 61: The ordinary appellation with which Athanasius and his
followers chose to compliment the Arians, was that of Ariomanites.]

[Footnote 62: Epiphanius, tom i. Haeres. lxxii. 4, p. 837. See the
adventures of Marcellus, in Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. v. i. p. 880-
899.) His work, in