acknowledge one God the Father, also His
only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. But two Gods must not be preached. The
Father is without beginning, invisible, and in every respect greater
than the Son, who is subject to Him together with the creatures. The Son
is born of the Father, God of God, by an inscrutable generation, and
took flesh or body, that is, man, through which he suffered. The words
_essence_, _of the same essence_, _of like essence_, ought not to be
used, because they are not found in Scripture, and because the divine
generation is beyond our understanding.' Here is something to notice
besides the repeated hints that the Son is no better than a creature. It
was a new policy to make the mystery in the manner of the divine
generation an excuse for ignoring the fact. In this case the plea of
ignorance is simply impertinent.

[Sidenote: Its results in general.]

The Sirmian manifesto is the turning-point of the whole contest.
Arianism had been so utterly crushed at Nicaea that it had never again
till now appeared in a public document. Henceforth the conservatives
were obliged in self-defence to look for a Nicene alliance against the
Anomoeans. Suspicions and misunderstandings, and at last mere force,
delayed its consolidation till the reign of Theodosius, but the Eusebian
coalition fell to pieces the moment Arianism ventured to have a policy
of its own.

[Sidenote: (1.) In the West.]

Ursacius and Valens had blown a trumpet which was heard from one end of
the Empire to the other. Its avowal of Arianism caused a stir even in
the West. Unlike the creeds of Antioch, it was a Western document, drawn
up in Latin by Western bishops. The spirit of the West was fairly
roused, now that the battle was clearly for the faith. The bishops of
Rome, Cordova, Trier, Poitiers, Toulouse, Calaris, Milan, and Vercellae
were in exile, but Gaul was now partly shielded from persecution by the
varying fortunes of Julian's Alemannic war. Thus everything increased
the ferment. Phoebadius of Agen took the lead, and a Gaulish synod at
once condemned the 'blasphemy.'

[Sidenote: (2.) In the East.]

If the Sirmian manifesto disturbed the West, it spread dismay through
the ranks of the Eastern conservatives. Plain men were weary of the
strife, and only the fishers in troubled waters wanted more of it. Now
that Marcellus and Photinus had been expelled, the Easterns looked for
rest. But the Sirmian manifesto opened an abyss at their feet.