United States or United Arab Emirates ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But Columbanus felt that he was called to labor in other lands while vigor remained to him, so, bidding his favorite follower farewell, he crossed the Alps and arrived at Milan in northern Italy. King Agilulph and his queen, Theodelinda, gave the Irish abbot a reverent and kind welcome. His zeal was still unspent, and he worked much for the conversion of the Lombard Arians.
The example of separation set by the Eustathians at Antioch and the Arians at Alexandria was not followed till a later stage of the controversy, when Diodorus and Flavian on one side, and the Anomoeans on the other, began to introduce their own peculiarities into the service.
The Arians still thought it prudent to disguise, in ambiguous language, their real sentiments and designs; but the orthodox bishops, armed with the favor of the people, and the decrees of a general council, insisted on every occasion, and particularly at Milan, that their adversaries should purge themselves from the suspicion of heresy, before they presumed to arraign the conduct of the great Athanasius.
The Creed that bears his name is not thought to be of his writing, but to convey what he taught. There was great talk at this time all over the cities about the questions between the Catholics and Arians, and good men were shocked by hearing the holiest mysteries of the faith gossiped about by the idlers in baths and market-places.
What, then, could be more natural than that, Sunday by Sunday, the sermons should have become less and less like those of the old Calvinistic divines, that the doctrine of the Trinity should have been less and less frequently mentioned, that at last it should have ceased to be mentioned, and that thus, in the course of years, preachers and hearers should, by insensible degrees, have become first Arians, then, perhaps, Socinians.
But Syrianus, the general of the Egyptian troops, was soon afterwards ordered by the emperor to place him on his episcopal throne; and he led him into the city, surrounded by the spears of five thousand soldiers, and followed by the small body of Alexandrians that after this invasion of their acknowledged rights still called themselves Arians.
Those of the Semiarians who were willing to join the Nicenes had already done so, and the rest were obstinate. They withdrew from the council and gave up their churches like the Arians. They comforted themselves with those words of Scripture, 'The churchmen are many, but the elect are few. Whatever jealousies might divide the conquerors, the Arian contest was now at an end.
The Greeks indeed, who approved of the Nicene Council, oppressed and also punished them wherever they were able; but the Arians returned the like treatment, especially in Africa and Italy. Yet this prosperity of the Arians wholly terminated when, under the auspices of Justinian, the Vandals were driven from Africa and the Goths from Italy.
At Alexandria, for example, the Jews were always ready for lawless outrage at the call of every enemy of Athanasius. The court also leaned to Arianism. The genuine Arians, to do them justice, were not more pliant to imperial dictation than the Nicenes, but the genuine Arians were only one section of a motley coalition.
The offence was aggravated by the thought that the victims were Roman and orthodox, the murderers barbarians and Arians; St. Ambrose, with a noble courage, stopped the Emperor at the door of the Basilica of Milan, and forbad him to enter, till he had atoned for the fatal order by public penance.
Word Of The Day