ty was still an open
question. Even the heretics are not cursed, for anathema in the Nicene
age was no more than the penalty which to a layman was equivalent to the
deposition of a cleric. It meant more when it was launched against the
dead two hundred years later.

[Sidenote: Arian objections.]

Our accounts of the debate are very fragmentary. Eusebius passes over an
unpleasant subject, and Athanasius up and down his writings only tells
us what he wants for his immediate purpose. Thus we cannot trace many of
the Arian objections to the creed. Knowing, however, as we do that they
were carefully discussed, we may presume that they were the standing
difficulties of the next generation. These were four in number:--

(1.) 'From the essence' and 'of one essence' are materialist
expressions, implying either that the Son is a separate part of the
essence of the Father, or that there is some third essence prior to
both. This objection was a difficulty in the East, and still more in the
West, where 'essence' was represented by the materializing word
_substantia_, from which we get our unfortunate translation 'of one
substance.'

(2.) 'Of one essence' is Sabellian. This was true; and the defenders of
the word did not seem to care if it was true. Marcellus almost certainly
used incautious language, and it was many years before even Athanasius
was fully awake to the danger from the Sabellian side.

(3.) The words 'essence' and 'of one essence' are not found in
Scripture. This is what seems to have influenced the bishops most of
all.

(4.) 'Of one essence' is contrary to church authority. This also was
true, for the word had been rejected as materializing by a large council
held at Antioch in 269 against Paul of Samosata. The point, however, at
present raised was not that it had been rejected for a good reason, but
simply that it had been rejected; and this is an appeal to church
authority in the style of later times. The question was one of Scripture
against church authority. Both parties indeed accepted Scripture as
supreme, but when they differed in its interpretation, the Arians
pleaded that a word not sanctioned by church authority could not be made
a test of orthodoxy. If tradition gave them a foothold (and none could
deny it), they thought themselves entitled to stay; if Scripture
condemned them (and there could be no doubt of that), Athanasius thought
himself bound to turn them out. It was on the ground of Scripture t