and the Goth had missed,
and brought them through a long career of victory to that proud day of
universal reconciliation [Sidenote: 800.] when the strife of ages was
forgotten, and Arianism with it--when, after more than three hundred
years of desolating anarchy, the Latin and the Teuton joined to
vindicate for Old Rome her just inheritance of empire, and to set its
holy diadem upon the head of Karl the Frank.

[Sidenote: Conclusion.]

Now that we have traced the history of Arianism to its final overthrow,
let us once more glance at the causes of its failure. Arianism, then,
was an illogical compromise. It went too far for heathenism, not far
enough for Christianity. It conceded Christian worship to the Lord, yet
made him no better than a heathen demigod. It confessed a Heavenly
Father, as in Christian duty bound, yet identified Him with the
mysterious and inaccessible Supreme of the philosophers. As a scheme of
Christianity, it was overmatched at every point by the Nicene doctrine;
as a concession to heathenism, it was outbid by the growing worship of
saints and relics. Debasing as was the error of turning saints into
demigods, it seems to have shocked Christian feeling less than the Arian
audacity which degraded the Lord of saints to the level of his
creatures. But the crowning weakness of Arianism was the incurable
badness of its method. Whatever were the errors of Athanasius--and in
details they were not a few--his work was without doubt a faithful
search for truth by every means attainable to him. He may be misled by
his ignorance of Hebrew or by the defective exegesis of his time; but
his eyes are always open to the truth, from whatever quarter it may come
to him. In breadth of view as well as grasp of doctrine, he is beyond
comparison with the rabble of controversialists who cursed or still
invoke his name. The gospel was truth and life to him, not a mere
subject for strife and debate. It was far otherwise with the Arians. On
one side their doctrine was a mass of presumptuous theorizing, supported
by alternate scraps of obsolete traditionalism and uncritical
text-mongering; on the other it was a lifeless system of spiritual pride
and hard unlovingness. Therefore Arianism perished. So too every system,
whether of science or theology, must likewise perish which presumes like
Arianism to discover in the feeble brain of man a law to circumscribe
the revelation of our Father's love in Christ.

CHRONOLOGICAL