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In this case the plea of ignorance is simply impertinent. The Sirmian manifesto is the turning-point of the whole contest. Arianism had been so utterly crushed at Nicæa that it had never again till now appeared in a public document. Henceforth the conservatives were obliged in self-defence to look for a Nicene alliance against the Anomoeans.

Arianism was a thing of yesterday and had no principle of life, and therefore it vanished in the crash of Hadrianople. The Homoean supremacy had come to rest almost wholly on imperial misbelief. The mob of the capital might be in its favour, and the virtues of isolated bishops might secure it some support elsewhere; but serious men were mostly Nicenes or Anomoeans.

The faith he professed was the Nicene, but Constantine himself was less tolerant than Jovian. In this respect he is blameless. If Athanasius was graciously received at Antioch, even the Arians were told with scant ceremony that they might hold their assemblies as they pleased at Alexandria. About this time the Anomoeans organised their schism.

Seeing that Arius was illogical in regarding the divine nature as incomprehensible, and yet reasoning as if its relations were fully explained by human types, the Anomoeans boldly declared that it is no mystery at all. If the divine essence is simple, man can perfectly understand it. 'Canst thou by searching find out God? Yes, and know him quite as well as he knows me.

Paul of Thebes, Hilarion of Gaza, and even the great Antony are only characters in the novels of the day. Now, however, there was in the East a real movement towards monasticism. All parties favoured it. The Semiarians were busy inside Mount Taurus; and though Acacians and Anomoeans held more aloof, they could not escape an influence which even Julian felt.

Again, likeness in all things cannot extend to essence, for all likeness which is not identity implies difference, if only the comparison is pushed far enough. So the Anomoeans argued, and Athanasius accepts their reasoning. The Semiarians had ruined their position by attempting to compromise a fundamental contradiction. The whole contest was lowered to a court intrigue.

Now that Marcellus and Photinus had been expelled, the Easterns looked for rest. But the Sirmian manifesto opened an abyss at their feet. The fruits of their hard-won victories over Sabellianism were falling to the Anomoeans. They must even defend themselves, for Ursacius and Valens had the Emperor's ear.

The Anomoeans leaned to the side of Acacius. They had no favour to expect from Nicenes or Semiarians, but to the Homoeans they could look for connivance at least. The Semiarians were therefore obliged to draw still closer to the Nicenes. Here came in Hilary of Poitiers.

But Euzoius was an avowed Arian; Eudoxius differed little from him, and only the remaining scruples of Constantius delayed the victory of the Anomoeans. 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.

The Acacians and Anomoeans were only forty, but they had a clear plan and the court in their favour. As the Semiarian leaders had put themselves in a false position by signing the dated creed, the conservative defence was taken up by men of the second rank, like Silvanus of Tarsus and the old soldier Eleusius of Cyzicus.