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Updated: June 25, 2025
Still another heresy was beginning to poison religious thought: Arianism, or the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ, was invading the church of Africa. And the writings of St. Augustine against this movement are among his most luminous and brilliant works. He wrote three letters and fifteen books on the Trinity these he commenced in 400 and completed in 416.
Nor was the excitement caused by the speculations of Dr. Clarke on the doctrine of the Trinity confined to the Church of England alone. It was the occasion of one of the fiercest disputes that ever arose among Nonconformists. Exeter was the first scene of the spread of Arianism among the Dissenters. Two ministers gave great offence to their congregations by preaching Arianism.
The Romans, who had spent three centuries in burning Christians and trying to obliterate the religion of Christ, were now its jealous guardians. They considered this "Arianism," as it was called, a blasphemous heresy, so shocking that they refused to call it Christianity at all.
And the book which forced this on me was Melchior Canus' 'Loci Theologici. It is a long book, but so orderly that you may get the whole outline with ease. Moehler's Symbolik you know. But, after all, Holy Scripture comes to me in a new light, as Ephes. iv. 4- 17, which seems to preclude the notion of a divisible unity: which is, in fact, Arianism in the matter of the Church.
The young emperor made himself unpopular by espousing Arianism, and for being governed by his mother Justina, and four years after was obliged to flee to Thessalonica, on an invasion of Italy by Maximus, and invoke the aid of Theodosius, who responded to his call, won by the charms of the princess Galla, whom he married.
The change in the national attitude was reflected in Connecticut by the whole-hearted antipathy of large numbers of her people to what they considered "radicalism of the most destructive character." English Arianism and Arminianism, with which the Edwardeans had waged war, were nothing compared to the influx of French infidelity and atheism which appeared to be sweeping over the land.
Few great men have ever been so free from littleness or weakness. At the age of twenty he had risen far above the level of Arianism and Sabellianism, and throughout his long career we catch glimpses of a spiritual depth which few of his contemporaries could reach. Above all things, his life was consecrated to a simple witness for truth.
To him more than any one we owe it that the question of Arianism did not lose itself in personalities and quibbles, but took its proper place as a battle for the central message of the gospel, which is its chief distinction from philosophy and heathenism. Instantly Alexandria was given up to the Arians, and Lucius repeated the outrages of Gregory and George.
His dying testimony then was, as to form, in favor of heretical rather than orthodox Christianity, but merely from accident, not from intention. He meant the Christian as against the heathen religion, and whatever of Arianism may have polluted his baptism, was for the Greek Church fully neutralized by the orthodox canonization.
Among the Nonconformists, and especially among the Presbyterians, the case was different. The Arianism which led to the Salters' Hall conference drifted by degrees into Unitarianism pure and simple. Dr. Lardner was one of the earliest and most distinguished of those who belonged to this latter school.
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