" The subtle questions pertaining to the Trinity were the theme
of universal conversation, even amid the calamities of the times.

Theodosius, as soon as he had finished his campaign against the Goths,
summoned the Arian archbishop of Constantinople, and demanded his
subscription to the Nicene Creed or his resignation. It must be
remembered that the Arians were in an overwhelming majority in the city,
and occupied the principal churches. They complained of the injustice of
removing their metropolitan, but the emperor was inflexible; and Gregory
Nazianzen, the friend of Basil, was promoted to the vacant See, in the
midst of popular grief and rage. Six weeks afterwards Theodosius
expelled from all the churches of his dominions, both of bishops and of
presbyters, those who would not subscribe to the Nicene Creed. It was a
great reformation, but effected without bloodshed.

Moreover, in the year 381 he assembled a general council of one hundred
and fifty bishops at his capital, to finish the work of the Council of
Nice, and in which Arianism was condemned. In the space of fifteen years
seven imperial edicts were fulminated against those who maintained that
the Son was inferior to the Father. A fine equal to two thousand dollars
was imposed on every person who should receive or promote an Arian
ordination. The Arians were forbidden to assemble together in their
churches, and by a sort of civil excommunication they were branded with
infamy by the magistrates, and rendered incapable of civil offices of
trust and emolument. Capital punishment even was inflicted on
Manicheans.

So it would appear that Theodosius inaugurated religious persecution for
honest opinions, and his edicts were similar in spirit to those of Louis
XIV. against the Protestants,--a great flaw in his character, but for
which he is lauded by the Catholic historians. The eloquent Flechier
enlarges enthusiastically on the virtues of his private life, on his
chastity, his temperance, his friendship, his magnanimity, as well as
his zeal in extinguishing heresy. But for him, Arianism might possibly
have been the established religion of the Empire, since not only the
dialectical Greeks, but the sensuous Goths, inclined to that creed.
Ulfilas, in his conversion of those barbarians, had made them the
supporters of Arianism, not because _they_ understood the subtile
distinctions which theologians had made, but because it was the accepted
and fashionable faith of Con