rcellus and Arius.
Each held firmly the central error of the conservatives, and rejected as
illogical the modifications and side views by which they were finding
their way to something better. Both parties, says Athanasius, are
equally inconsistent. The conservatives, who refuse eternal being to the
Son of God, will not endure to hear that his kingdom is other than
eternal; while the Marcellians, who deny his personality outright, are
equally shocked at the Arian limitation of it to the sphere of time. Nor
had Marcellus escaped the difficulties of Arius. If, for example, the
idea of an eternal Son is polytheistic, nothing is gained by
transferring the eternity to an impersonal Word. If the generation of
the Son is materializing, so also is the coming forth of the Word. If
the work of creation is unworthy of God, it may as well be delegated to
a created Son as to a transitory Word. So far Athanasius. Indeed, to
Marcellus the Son of God is a mere phenomenon of time, and even the Word
is as foreign to the divine essence as the Arian Son. If the one can
only reveal in finite measure, the other gives but broken hints of an
infinity beyond. Instead of destroying Arianism by the roots, Marcellus
had fallen into something very like Sabellianism. He reaches no true
mediation, no true union of God and man, for he makes the incarnation a
mere theophany, the flesh a useless burden, to be one day laid aside.
The Lord is our Redeemer and the conqueror of death and Satan, but there
is no room for a second Adam, the organic head of regenerate mankind.
The redemption becomes a mere intervention from without, not also the
planting of a power of life within, which will one day quicken our
mortal bodies too.

[Sidenote: (3.) Athanasius.]

Marcellus had fairly exposed himself to a doctrinal attack; other
methods were used with Athanasius. They had material enough without
touching doctrine. His election was disputed: Meletians and Arians
complained of oppression: there were some useful charges of magic and
political intrigue. At first, however, the Meletians could not even get
a hearing from the Emperor. When Eusebius of Nicomedia took up their
cause, they fared a little better. The attack had to be put off till the
winter of 331, and was even then a failure. Their charges were partly
answered by two presbyters of Athanasius who were on the spot; and when
the bishop himself was summoned to court, he soon completed their
discomfiture. As Co