ady foresee the possibility of a new alliance between Nicenes
and conservatives.

[Sidenote: Rise of Anomoeans.]

We see also the rise of a new and more defiant Arian school, more in
earnest than the older generation, impatient of their shuffling
diplomacy and less pliant to court influences. Aetius was a man of
learning and no small dialectic skill, who had passed through many
troubles in his earlier life and been the disciple of several scholars,
mostly of the Lucianic school, before he came to rest in a clear and
simple form of Arianism. Christianity without mystery seems to have been
his aim. The Anomoean leaders took their stand on the doctrine of
Arius himself, and dwelt with most emphasis on its most offensive
aspects. Arius had long ago laid down the absolute unlikeness of the Son
to the Father, but for years past the Arianizers had prudently softened
it down. Now, however, 'unlike' became the watchword of Aetius and
Eunomius, and their followers delighted to shock all sober feeling by
the harshest and profanest declarations of it. The scandalous jests of
Eudoxius must have given deep offence to thousands; but the great
novelty of the Anomoean doctrine was its audacious self-sufficiency.
Seeing that Arius was illogical in regarding the divine nature as
incomprehensible, and yet reasoning as if its relations were fully
explained by human types, the Anomoeans boldly declared that it is no
mystery at all. If the divine essence is simple, man can perfectly
understand it. 'Canst thou by searching find out God?' Yes, and know him
quite as well as he knows me. Such was the new school of
Arianism--presumptuous and shallow, quarrelsome and heathenising, yet
not without a directness and a firmness of conviction which gives it a
certain dignity in spite of its wrangling and irreverence. Its
conservative allies it despised for their wavering and insincerity; to
its Nicene opponents it repaid hatred for hatred, and flung back with
retorted scorn their denial of its right to bear the Christian name.

[Sidenote: Illustration from the state of: (1.) Jerusalem.]

We may now glance at the state of the churches at Jerusalem and Antioch
during the years of rest. Jerusalem had been a resort of pilgrims since
the days of Origen, and Helena's visit shortly after the Nicene council
had fully restored it to the dignity of a holy place. We still have the
itinerary of a nameless pilgrim who found his way from Bordeaux to
Palestine in