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Take another instance: There was, in the fourth century, a party of divines who were ecclesiastically opposed to the line of theologians, whose principles had been, and were afterwards, dominant in the Church, such as Athanasius, Jerome, and Epiphanius; I mean, for instance, Eusebius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and others who were more or less connected with the Semi-Arians.

First, in the history of the Arians I found the same phenomena which I had found in the Monophysites: the pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians were the Anglicans, and Rome now was what it was then. Secondly, the bishops, one after another, began to charge against me in a formal, determinate movement.

As it frequently happens, that the sounds and characters which approach the nearest to each other accidentally represent the most opposite ideas, the observation would be itself ridiculous, if it were possible to mark any real and sensible distinction between the doctrine of the Semi-Arians, as they were improperly styled, and that of the Catholics themselves.

I had not observed it in 1832. Wonderful that this should come upon me! I had not sought it out; I was reading and writing in my own line of study, far from the controversies of the day, on what is called a "metaphysical" subject; but I saw clearly, that in the history of Arianism, the pure Arians were the Protestants, the semi-Arians were the Anglicans, and that Rome now was what it was then.

He showed that the crucial test of orthodoxy, the one single term at which Arians and semi-Arians scrupled that is, the Homoousion or Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father was actually in use before the Nicene Council, and that it was thoroughly in accordance with the teaching of the ante-Nicene Fathers.

Yet he confesses that the word has a dark and suspicious aspect; and, as if darkness were congenial to theological disputes, the Semi-Arians, who advanced to the doors of the church, assailed them with the most unrelenting fury. The provinces of Egypt and Asia, which cultivated the language and manners of the Greeks, had deeply imbibed the venom of the Arian controversy.

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.

But on the latter question the Creed is silent. Those who accepted the Creed, and hereby condemned the great error of Arius that the Son was of different substance from the Father, but nevertheless agreed with Arius in thinking that the Son had a beginning of existence, were called Semi-Arians; and were received into communion by Athanasius, in spite of this disagreement.

Of Unitarians such as these, if they can be called by that name, and not rather Arians or Semi-Arians, the words of Dr. Arnold may properly be quoted: 'The addressing Christ in the language of prayer and praise is an essential part of Christian worship. Every Christian would feel his devotions incomplete, if this formed no part of them.

But that they failed of their object in constituting a criterion of truth is plainly demonstrated by such simple facts as that, in the fourth century alone, there were thirteen councils adverse to Arius, fifteen in his favour, and seventeen for the semi-Arians in all, forty-five.