The following works will be found useful by students who are willing to pursue the subject further. Some of special interest or importance are marked with an asterisk. (A.) Original Authorities and Translations . The Church Histories of *Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, and (for the Arian side) the fragments of Philostorgius [translations in Bohn's Ecclesiastical Library ]. *Eusebius, Vita Constantini and Contra Marcellum Ancyranum . *Athanasius, especially De Incarnatione Verbi Dei , De Decretis S

The present work is largely, though not entirely, an abridgement of my Studies of Arianism . The Conversion of the Goths, which gives the best side of Arianism, has been omitted as belonging more properly to another volume of the series....

Arianism is extinct only in the sense that it has long ceased to furnish party names. It sprang from permanent tendencies of human nature, and raised questions whose interest can never perish. As long as the Agnostic and the Evolutionist are with us, the old battlefields of Athanasius will not be left to silence. Moreover, no writer more directly joins the new world of Teutonic Christianity with the old of Greek and Roman heathenism. Arianism began its career partly as a theory of Christianity,

For nearly twenty years after the middle of the third century, the Roman Empire seemed given over to destruction. It is hard to say whether the provinces suffered more from the inroads of barbarians who ravaged them almost at their will, or from the exactions of a mutinous soldiery who set up an emperor for almost every army; yet both calamities were surpassed by the horrors of a pestilence which swept away the larger part of mankind. There was little hope in an effete polytheism, still less in

At first sight the reaction which followed the Nicene council is one of the strangest scenes in history. The decision was clear and all but unanimous. Arianism seemed crushed for ever by the universal reprobation of the Christian world. Yet it instantly renewed the contest, and fought its conquerors on equal terms for more than half a century. A reaction like this is plainly more than a court intrigue. Imperial favour could do a good deal in the Nicene age, but no emperor could long oppose any c

Constantine's work on earth was done. When the hand of death was on him, he laid aside the purple, and the ambiguous position of a Christian Cæsar with it, and passed away in the white robe of a simple convert. Long as he had been a friend to the churches, he had till now put off the elementary rite of baptism, in the hope one day to receive it in the waters of the Jordan, like the Lord himself. Darkly as his memory is stained with isolated crimes, Constantine must for ever rank among the greate

Meanwhile new troubles were gathering in the West. While the Eastern churches were distracted with the crimes or wrongs of Marcellus and Athanasius, Europe remained at peace from the Atlantic to the frontier of Thrace. The western frontier of Constantius was also the western limit of the storm. Hitherto its distant echoes had been very faintly heard in Gaul and Spain; but now the time was come for Arianism to invade the tranquil obscurity of the West. Constans was not ill-disposed, and for some

Flavius Claudius Julianus was the son of Constantine's half-brother, Julius Constantius, by his second wife, Basilina, a lady of the great Anician family. He was born in 331, and lost his mother a few months later, while his father and other relations perished in the massacre which followed Constantine's death. Julian and his half-brother Gallus escaped the slaughter to be kept almost as prisoners of state, surrounded through their youth with spies and taught by hypocrites a repulsive Christiani

Julian's reign seems at first sight no more than a sudden storm which clears up and leaves everything much as it was before. Far from restoring heathenism, he could not even seriously shake the power of Christianity. No sooner was he dead than the philosophers disappeared, the renegades did penance, and even the reptiles of the palace came back to their accustomed haunts. Yet Julian's work was not in vain, for it tested both heathenism and Christianity. All that Constantine had given to the chur

The fiftieth year from the great council came and went, and brought no relief to the calamities of the churches. Meletius and Cyril were still in exile, East and West were still divided over the consecration of Paulinus, and now even Alexandria had become the prey of Lucius. The leaden rule of Valens still weighed down the East, and Valens was scarcely yet past middle life, and might reign for many years longer. The deliverance came suddenly, and the Nicene faith won its victory in the confusion

269. Claudius defeats the Goths at Naissus. 272. Aurelian defeats Zenobia. 284-305. Diocletian. Cir. 297. Birth of Athanasius. 303-313. The great persecution. 306-337. Constantine (in Gaul). 311. First edict of toleration (by Galerius). 312-337. Constantine (in Italy). 312. Second edict of toleration (from Milan). 314. Council of Arles, on the Donatists, &c. 315-337. Constantine (in Illyricum). Cir. 317. Athanasius de Incarnatione Verbi Dei . Cir. 318. Outbreak of Arian controversy. 323-