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The accused had come to Rome when summoned, and waited for them eighteen months in vain, whereas the Eusebians had uncanonically appointed an utter stranger in his place at Alexandria, and sent him with a guard of soldiers all the way from Antioch to disturb the peace of Egypt with horrible outrages.
The Westerns were determined to sift the whole matter to the bottom, but the Eusebians refused to enter the council. It was in vain that Hosius asked them to give their proofs, if it were only to himself in private. In vain he promised that if Athanasius was acquitted, and they were still unwilling to receive him, he would take him back with him to Spain.
When even the court preached peace and charity, the sermon was not likely to want an audience. The Homoeans were at first less hostile to the Nicene faith than the Eusebians had been. After sacrificing Aetius and exiling the Semiarians, they could hardly do without Nicene support. Thus their appointments were often made from the quieter men of Nicene leanings.
In the case of Marcellus, it was found that the Eusebians had misquoted his book, setting down opinions as his own which he had only put forward for discussion. Thus it was not true that he had denied the eternity of the Word in the past or of his kingdom in the future. Quite so: but the eternity of the Sonship is another matter.
Constantius was busy with the Persian war, and could not refuse; so it was summoned to meet in the summer of 343. To the dismay of the Eusebians, the place chosen was Sardica in Dacia, just inside the dominions of Constans. After their failure with the Eastern bishops at Antioch, they could not hope to control the Westerns in a free council. To Sardica the bishops came.
The result was twenty years of busy creed-making, and twenty more of confusion, before it was finally seen that there was no escape from the dilemma which had been decisive at Nicæa. The Eusebians began by offering a meagre and evasive creed, much like the confession of Arius and Euzoius, prefacing it with a declaration that they were not followers of Arius, but his independent adherents.
His letter is one of the ablest documents of the entire controversy. Nothing can be better than the calm and high judicial tone in which he lays open every excuse of the Eusebians. He was surprised, he says, to receive so discourteous an answer to his letter. But what was their grievance? If it was his invitation to a synod, they could not have much confidence in their cause.
Throughout this century the struggle proceeded furiously, each party in turn getting the upper hand, as the emperor of the time inclined towards Catholicism or towards Arianism, and each persecuting the adherents of the other. Among Arian subdivisions we find Semi-Arians, Eusebians, Aetians, Eunomians, Acasians, Psathyrians, etc.
Amongst the few prominent Eusebians of the West were two disciples of Arius who held the neighbouring bishoprics of Mursa and Singidunum, the modern Belgrade. Valens and Ursacius were young men in 335, but old enough to take a part in the infamous Egyptian commission of the council of Tyre. Since that time they had been well to the front in the Eusebian plots.
Next summer he was forced to evacuate Italy, and in 353 his destruction was completed by a defeat in the Cottian Alps. Magnentius fell upon his sword, and Constantius remained the master of the world. The Eusebians were not slow to take advantage of the confusion. The fires of controversy in the East were smouldering through the years of rest, so that it was no hard task to make them blaze afresh.
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