"Great was the heat and great the perplexity which Apollinaris
created in the minds of his auditory, when the authority of the
Church drew them one way, and the influence of their teacher drew
them the other, so that, wavering and hesitating between the two,
they could not decide which was to be chosen. You will say, he
ought at once to have been put aside; yes, but he was so great a
man, that his word carried with it an extraordinary credence. Who
indeed was his superior in acumen, in long practice, in view of
doctrine? As to the number of his volumes against heresies, I will
but mention as a specimen of them that great and noble work of his
against Porphyry, in not less than thirty books, with its vast
collection of arguments. He would have been among the
master-builders of the Church, had not the profane lust of
heretical curiosity incited him to strike out something new, to
pollute withal his labours throughout with the taint of leprosy, so
that his teaching was rather a temptation to the Church than an
edification."--_Ch._ 16.

It is a solemn and pregnant fact, that two of the most zealous and
forward of Athanasius's companions in the good fight against Arianism,
Marcellus and Apollinaris, fell away into heresies of their own; nor did
the Church spare them, for all their past services. "Let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall"[missing a "."?]

"Alas, my brother! round thy tomb,
In sorrow kneeling, and in fear,
We read the pastor's doom,
Who speaks and will not hear.

"The gray-haired saint may fail at last,
The surest guide a wanderer prove;
Death only binds us fast
To the bright shore of love."

CHAPTER IV.

AND WHAT SAY JOVINIAN AND HIS COMPANIONS?

1.

Vincentius wrote in the early part of the fifth century, that is, three
good centuries and more after the death of St. John; accordingly, we
sometimes hear it said that, true though it be, that the Catholic
system, as we Anglicans maintain it, existed at that time, nevertheless
it was a system quite foreign to the pure Gospel, though introduced at a
very early age; a system of Pagan or Jewish origin, which crept in
unawares, and was established on the ruins of the Apostolic faith by the
episcopal confederation, which mainly depended on it for its own
maintenance. In other words, it is considered by some persons to be a