this narrative says, Theodosius gave them any promise, he was soon induced to draw back from it; the writer even says that he cancelled it by a decisive enactment, but it is probable that the Arians built too much on a few fair words. At any rate, the great edict of the 10th of January, 381, Nullus hæreticis, would overthrow any such hopes on their part. The opening clause was sufficiently explicit: "Let the heretics possess no place for celebrating their mysteries." Every concession obtained, as the Emperor chooses to say, "by fraud," is revoked. The Catholic faith as formulated at Nicæa is alone to be sanctioned, is to remain in perpetual observance. The "contamination of the Photinian pestilence, the poison of Arian sacrilegiousness, the crime of Eunomian misbelief," as they are described in the copious verbiage of imperial orthodoxy, were-as far as a legislator could effect it-to be "not so much as heard of again." A true Catholic was defined as one who confessed God Almighty, and Christ the One Son of God, by name-God of God, Light of Light: who did not insult, by denying, the Holy Spirit, through whom we receive that which we hope for from the Supreme Parent of all things; and in whose mind, by the perception of undefiled faith, there dwelt a sound belief in that undivided substance of the inviolable Trinity, which true believers, employing a Greek word, call "ousia." Those who did not accept this faith were to cease from their disingenuous assumption of the name of the True Religion, to which they had no title: they were to be debarred from entering the churches, and from holding meetings elsewhere than outside the towns; and if, in these circumstances, they made any factious outbreak, they were to be driven away "even from the city walls." The statement of Sozomen, that Theodosius forbade all discussions or meetings in the agora, refers of course to this law, and falls in with the complaint of Palladius that the Emperor, under the urgency of "heretics," forbade all disputation about the faith "whether in public or in private," as the text of his new law expressed it.

"It might have been wished," says Tillemont, "that Theodosius had found it as easy to restore peace and union to the Catholics as, by this law of January 10, to restore to them the churches which had been occupied by the Arians." The Western Church was, generally speaking, in the enjoyment of such peace, but in Spain there was an important exception. The strange phenomenon presented by what is known as Priscillianism takes us quite away from the atmosphere of the Arian controversy: we find Spanish

ecclesiastics and lay people exciting themselves for and against a weird "witch's caldron" of Manichean, Gnostic, and to some extent Sabellian or Photinian notions, scraps of this heresy and of that mixed up with astrological superstitions tending to fatalism, an unhealthy and un-Christian "asceticism," a false spiritualism which in effect set aside the Incarnation, and an unscrupulous readiness to disclaim or conceal opinions which, if avowed, might mean danger. An Egyptian, Marcus, had brought this medley of errors from Memphis; a lady named Agape, and a rhetorician named Elpidius, took it up eagerly, and communicated the new ideas to Priscillian, a man of birth and wealth, who is described by Sulpicius Severus (our main authority on the subject) as learned, eloquent, keen-witted, apt for discussion, skilful in persuasion, superior to all vulgar passions, but possessed, like Julian, with a morbid curiosity which orthodox Christianity refused to satiate. Many of his own class, and still more among the common people, were fascinated by this new mystic lore, as imparted by one whose attractiveness as a teacher was enhanced by his engaging manner and modest tone. He actually perverted two bishops, Instantius and Salvianus; but another, Idacius of Merida, opposed him with an intemperate zeal which did no service to orthodoxy. The controversy assumed serious dimensions: at last a Council met at Saragossa in the October of 380, which did not scruple to condemn the Priscillianists in the absence of their leaders, on such charges as deserting the churches at Christmastide, and going barefoot into the mountains, and fasting on Sundays from a heterodox motive. But Instantius and Salvianus were so far from being daunted by this ecclesiastical censure, that they proceeded to consecrate Priscillian as bishop of Avila; and their defiant attitude provoked the Spanish hierarchy to appoint one of its number to see its decrees carried out by aid of the secular power. This man, Ithacius, was a specimen of the worst type of heretic-hunters-an inquisitor without any redeeming virtue, rash to audacity, self-indulgent, a babbler, devoid of tact and prudence. He associated himself with Idacius, but surpassed him in headlong fury of zeal; and between them they induced the civil magistrates to expel the Priscillianists from cities, and procured from Gratian in 381 an edict banishing them from Spain. They took advantage of this edict to visit Rome and Milan, in the hope of obtaining ecclesiastical support. Priscillian addressed a treatise to Damasus, whom he calls "senior and first bishop," and also "your crown," and professed his faith in orthodox language,

such as, on the whole, characterizes the rest of his recently discovered writings, although here and there may be found in them expressions of a Sabellian or an Apollinarian colour. If they are to be treated as conveying his real mind, it would be unfair to regard him as theologically a heretic; but much was said against his party on the score of esoteric teaching which nullified their orthodox professions. Priscillian could gain nothing either at Rome or Milan; but he managed to set in motion the influences of Macedonius, Gratian's Master of the Offices, who procured from Gratian the recall of his sentence of banishment.

This was the extent of trouble in the Western Church; but the East was distracted not only by the numerous heretical sects, but by the divisions of Catholics themselves. Among these must still be reckoned the feud between the two parties at Antioch, which had been but superficially healed by the "accommodation" of 379; the agitation caused by the intrigues of Maximus at Constantinople; and the opposition encountered by Timothy, the new bishop of Alexandria. Yet these troubles were not so painfully felt by Theodosius and his ecclesiastical advisers as the obstinate vitality of Arianism among numerous Eastern Christians, the wide-spreading diffusion, in popular forms, of the opposite heresy of Apollinaris, and the disappointment of hopes which had once been entertained as to the absorption of the Macedonian party into the Church. In order to provide some remedy for these evils, and to effect a permanent settlement as to the episcopate of Constantinople, which Gregory had but provisionally accepted, Theodosius resolved to assemble a great Council of Eastern prelates in that city; and this was, in fact, the occasion of the meeting of what has since been regarded as the Second Ecumenical Synod.

CHAPTER XXII.

66
THE SECOND GENERAL COUNCIL."

THE Council of Constantinople met, it appears, some time after the Easter of 381, which fell on the 28th of March; for Socrates says that the bishops were assembled in the month of May. There were but 150 Catholic prelates present: of these, the most eminent were Meletius; Timothy, the new archbishop of Alexandria; Cyril of Jerusalem, who had returned from his third exile at the accession of Gratian, and who now explicitly confessed the Homoousion which he had all along, or at least for years, virtually accepted; his nephew Gelasius, who now held the metropolitan see of Cæsarea; Helladius of Cæsarea in Cappadocia, the successor of Basil; Eulogius of Edessa; Amphilochius of Iconium; Gregory of Nyssa; Acacius of Bercea in Syria; Diodore of Tarsus; Ascholius of Thessalonica,—with Gregory Nazianzen. But some of these, as the bishops from Egypt and Macedonia, appear to have come later than others: Gregory Nazianzen's account would seem to imply that they did not arrive until pressing messages had been sent to them by the Council. In the hope of accomplishing the work which had been begun in the last year of pope Liberius, and had been interrupted by the failure of the plan for a Council of Tarsus, thirty-six bishops belonging to the party of Macedoniuschiefly from the Hellespontine towns-were invited to the Council.

The place of president was assigned to Meletius, who, according to Socrates and Sozomen, had arrived at Constantinople before the rest, in order to assist at the settlement of Gregory in that see; but this, as Tillemont remarks, is an exaggeration, or misstatement, of the fact that Meletius's action in that matter took place before the arrival of the bishops from Egypt and Macedonia. According to Theodoret, the Emperor Theodosius, without being told which of the bishops presented to him was Meletius, at once singled him out

as the person whose likeness, in a dream, had seemed to invest him in imperial robes, and to place a crown upon his head. He kissed the bishop's eyes, lips, bosom, and head, as a son after long separation might greet a father. But he addressed the other prelates also in terms of filial respect, and exhorted them to proceed to business, and, in the first place, to settle the Church affairs of Constantinople. The inquiry into the pretensions of Maximus was not difficult. It was resolved that his consecration, and all ordinations performed by him, should be treated as null and void; and this resolution became eventually the fourth canon of the Council. Gregory was now, at last, in the most formal and fully ecclesiastical manner, established as bishop of Constantinople; he himself says that the only reason he had for satisfaction in this appointment was that, in his usual hopeful strain, he "thought that he might be thus enabled to unite discordant parties, to be a choragus to bring two choirs together."

This was the last Church act of Meletius, for he died very soon afterwards, having earnestly exhorted his brethren to labour for the Church's peace. Gregory of Nyssa preached his funeral sermon: it began by describing the departed prelate as a new apostle just added to the apostolic company, and then descanted on the bereavement of the Church at a crisis which loudly called for a "counsellor and a "healer." "But lately," said the preacher, alluding to his namesake's installation, "we were singing as it were a nuptial song; to-day, we sing a dirge! We had," he continues, “in him that is gone, a firm pilot, and the anchorage of a steadfast judgment." His had been a presence singularly winning and lovable: "Where is now that sweet calm glance, that radiant smile on the lips, that cordial right hand, that used to move its fingers in unison with the blessing that flowed from the tongue!" This agrees with Nazianzen's estimate: "simple, artless, tranquil in look, inspiring at once confidence and reverence." Nor can he refrain from the obvious pun: "honey-like in conduct as in name." The funeral was stately and majestic: the Emperor left his throne to take part in it; the whole city went forth to escort the venerated remains on their homeward journey. Gregory Nyssen speaks of the vast crowd of people, "like a sea," surrounding the bier of Meletius, and the lights which, stretching in long lines as far as the eye could reach, seemed like rivers of fire. And as the corpse, after being borne across into Asia, passed from town to town, psalms were chanted, and an observance which Sozomen marks as