finity, there is nothing incredible in a real incarnation, or in a
real trinity inside the unity of God. But the heathen had no historic
revelation of a living hope to sustain him in that age of failure and
exhaustion. Nature was just as mighty, just as ruthless then as now, and
the gospel was not yet the spring of hope it is in modern life. In our
time the very enemies of the cross are living in its light, and drawing
at their pleasure from the well of Christian hope. It was not yet so in
that age. Brave men like Marcus Aurelius could only do their duty with
hopeless courage, and worship as they might a God who seemed to refuse
all answer to the great and bitter cry of mankind. If he cares for men,
why does he let them perish? The less he has to do with us, the better
we can understand our evil plight. Thus their Supreme was far beyond the
weakness of human sympathy. They made him less a person than a thing or
an idea, enveloped in clouds of mysticism and abolished from the world
by his very exaltation over it. He must not touch it lest it perish. The
Redeemer whom the Christians worship may be a hero or a prophet, an
angel or a demi-god--anything except a Son of God in human form. We
shall have to find some explanation for the scandal of the incarnation.

[Sidenote: Arius himself.]

Arianism is Christianity shaped by thoughts like these. Its author was
no mere bustling schemer, but a grave and blameless presbyter of
Alexandria. Arius was a disciple of the greatest critic of his time, the
venerated martyr Lucian of Antioch. He had a name for learning, and his
letters bear witness to his dialectical skill and mastery of subtle
irony. At the outbreak of the controversy, about the year 318, we find
him in charge of the church of Baucalis at Alexandria, and in high
favour with his bishop, Alexander. It was no love of heathenism, but a
real difficulty of the gospel which led him to form a new theory. His
aim was not to lower the person of the Lord or to refuse him worship,
but to defend that worship from the charge of polytheism. Starting from
the Lord's humanity, he was ready to add to it everything short of the
fullest deity. He could not get over the philosophical difficulty that
one who is man cannot be also God, and therefore a second God. Let us
see how high a creature can be raised without making hint essentially
divine.

[Sidenote: His doctrine; Its merits.]

The Arian Christ is indeed a lofty creature. He claims