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He may be misled by his ignorance of Hebrew or by the defective exegesis of his time; but his eyes are always open to the truth, from whatever quarter it may come to him. In breadth of view as well as grasp of doctrine, he is beyond comparison with the rabble of controversialists who cursed or still invoke his name. The gospel was truth and life to him, not a mere subject for strife and debate.
Cyprian's adversaries did not shrink from so foul a perversion of his name as to call him Koprianos, or 'the Dungy. But then how often is Pelagius declared by the Church Fathers to be a pelagus, a very ocean of wickedness. The Waldenses, or Wallenses, were declared by Roman controversialists to be justly so called, as dwelling 'in valle densa, in the thick valley of darkness and ignorance.
It is natural to feel distrust of controversialists, who, to all appearance, would not have been earnest against a doctrine or practice, except that it galled themselves. Now it so happens that each of these three Reformers lies open to this imputation. Aerius is expressly declared by Epiphanius to have been Eustathius's competitor for the see of Sebaste, and to have been disgusted at failing.
The Roman Controversialists of the seventeenth century used to go further still, and boldly assert that to leave Rome was to go to Socinianism; and the Calvinists, on their side, would sometimes argue that 'Arminianism was a shoeing horn to draw on Socinianism. A great number of the Unitarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were themselves scarcely distinguishable from the orthodox.
The fiercest and most dogmatic of controversialists was the most gentle and loving of saints. His humanity was as marked as his fanaticism, and nothing could weaken it, not even the rigors of his convent life. He wept at the sorrows of all who sought his sympathy or advice.
"Ashtavakra said, 'O king, O leader of fierce legions, in this assembly of monarchs of unrivalled power who have met together, I am unable to find out Vandin, chief of the controversialists. But I am searching for him, even as one doth for a swan on a vast expanse of water. O Vandin, thou regardest thyself as the foremost of controversialists.
Yet so far are we from realizing this most ancient of facts to-day that, on both sides of the woman question, wonderful to relate, are to be found controversialists who are seeking to deny this continuous lesson of so many million ages. The reader may take his choice of folly between them.
The Thirty-nine Articles are not a proper subject for poetry, but the sustained and serious allegory which Dryden weaves round theological discussion preserves his treatment of them from the fate of the controversialists who opposed him. His work has wit and vitality enough to keep it sweet.
It is true that in the Gospels are to be found general principles or, at any rate, indications of general principles, which afterwards, in the hands of the Church, proved largely subversive of the servile organization of society; but that is a matter of historical, not of Biblical testimony, and would, if followed out, have led both Northern and Southern controversialists further than either of them wanted to go.
Enough surely for both controversialists if we use such a means of tabulating facts as to beg the question for neither view; and still better if we can present the case of each without injustice to either, nay, to each with its clearness increased by the sharp edge of contrast.
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