polytheistic; equally did they dread the least apparent detraction from
the power and importance of their Saviour. They were forced into the
theory of the Trinity by the necessity of those contrary assertions,
and they had to make it a mystery protected by curses to save it from a
reductio ad absurdam. The entire history of the growth of the Christian
doctrine in those disordered early centuries is a history of theology
by committee; a history of furious wrangling, of hasty compromises, and
still more hasty attempts to clinch matters by anathema. When the muddle
was at its very worst, the church was confronted by enormous political
opportunities. In order that it should seize these one chief thing
appeared imperative: doctrinal uniformity. The emperor himself, albeit
unbaptised and very ignorant of Greek, came and seated himself in the
midst of Christian thought upon a golden throne. At the end of it all
Eusebius, that supreme Trimmer, was prepared to damn everlastingly all
those who doubted that consubstantiality he himself had doubted at the
beginning of the conference. It is quite clear that Constantine did not
care who was damned or for what period, so long as the Christians ceased
to wrangle among themselves. The practical unanimity of Nicaea was
secured by threats, and then, turning upon the victors, he sought by
threats to restore Arius to communion. The imperial aim was a common
faith to unite the empire. The crushing out of the Arians and of the
Paulicians and suchlike heretics, and more particularly the systematic
destruction by the orthodox of all heretical writings, had about it none
of that quality of honest conviction which comes to those who have a
real knowledge of God; it was a bawling down of dissensions that, left
to work themselves out, would have spoilt good business; it was the fist
of Nicolas of Myra over again, except that after the days of Ambrose the
sword of the executioner and the fires of the book-burner were added to
the weapon of the human voice. Priscillian was the first human sacrifice
formally offered up under these improved conditions to the greater glory