own theology; but as they had no central authority by which such
definitions could be checked, it was not long before a hundred heresies
had put forward their rival views, while the same earnestness of
conviction led the stronger bands of schismatics to endeavour, for
conscience sake, to force their views upon the weaker, and thus to cover
the Eastern world with confusion and strife.

Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople were centres of theological
warfare. The whole north of Africa, too, was rent by the strife of the
Donatists, who upheld their particular schism by iron flails and the
war-cry of "Praise to the Lord!" But minor local controversies sank to
nothing when compared with the huge argument of the Catholic and the
Arian, which rent every village in twain, and divided every household
from the cottage to the palace. The rival doctrines of the Homoousian
and of the Homoiousian, containing metaphysical differences so
attenuated that they could hardly be stated, turned bishop against
bishop and congregation against congregation. The ink of the
theologians and the blood of the fanatics were spilled in floods on
either side, and gentle followers of Christ were horrified to find that
their faith was responsible for such a state of riot and bloodshed as
had never yet disgraced the religious history of the world. Many of the
more earnest among them, shocked and scandalized, slipped away to the
Libyan Desert, or to the solitude of Pontus, there to await in
self-denial and prayer that second coming which was supposed to be at
hand. Even in the deserts they could not escape the echo of the distant
strife, and the hermits themselves scowled fiercely from their dens at
passing travellers who might be contaminated by the doctrines of
Athanasius or of Arius.

Such a hermit was Simon Melas, of whom I write. A Trinitarian and a