us. If we now take into account the third canon,
we cannot mistake the Asiatic policy of endeavouring to replace the
primacy of Rome or Alexandria by that of Constantinople.

[Sidenote: The Novatians.]

The tolerance of Theodosius was a little, though only a little, wider
than it seems. Though the Novatians were not in communion with
Nectarius, they were during the next half century a recognised exception
to the persecuting laws. They had always been sound as against Arianism,
and their bishop Agelius had suffered exile under Valens. His confession
was approved by Theodosius, and several of his successors lived on
friendly terms with liberal or worldly patriarchs like Nectarius and
Atticus. They suffered something from the bigotry of Chrysostom,
something also from the greed of Cyril, but for them the age of
persecution only began with Nestorius in 428.

[Sidenote: Decay of Arianism.]

So far as numbers went, the cause of Arianism was not even yet hopeless.
It was still fairly strong in Syria and Asia, and counted adherents as
far west as the banks of the Danube. At Constantinople it could raise
dangerous riots (in one of them Nectarius had his house burnt), and even
at the court of Milan it had a powerful supporter in Valentinian's
widow, the Empress Justina. Yet its fate was none the less a mere
question of time. Its cold logic generated no such fiery enthusiasm as
sustained the African Donatists; the newness of its origin allowed no
venerable traditions to grow up round it like those of heathenism, while
its imperial claims and past successes cut it off from the appeal of
later heresies to provincial separatism. When, therefore, the last
overtures of Theodosius fell through in 383, the heresy was quite unable
to bear the strain of steady persecution.

[Sidenote: Teutonic Arianism: (1.) In the East.]

But if Arianism soon ceased to be a power inside the Empire, it remained
the faith of the barbarian invaders. The work of Ulfilas was not in
vain. Not the Goths only, but all the earlier Teutonic converts were
Arians. And the Goths had a narrow miss of empire. The victories of
Theodosius were won by Gothic strength. It was the Goths who scattered
the mutineers of Britain, and triumphantly scaled the impregnable walls
of Aquileia; [Sidenote: 388.] the Goths who won the hardest battle of
the century, and saw the Franks themselves go down before them on the
Frigidus. [Sidenote: 394.] The Goths of Alaric plundered Rome