The vital question discussed by this magnificent and august assembly was metaphysical as well as religious; yet it was the question of the age, on which everybody talked, in public and in private, and which was deemed of far greater importance than any war or any affair of State.  The interest in this subject seems strange to many, in an age when positive science and material interests have so largely crowded out theological discussions.  But the doctrine of the Trinity was as vital and important in the eyes of the divines of the fourth century as that of Justification by Faith was to the Germans when they assembled in the great hall of the Electoral palace of Leipsic to hear Luther and Dr. Eck advocate their separate sides.

In the time of Constantine everything pertaining to Christianity and the affairs of the Church became invested with supreme importance.  All other subjects and interests were secondary, certainly among the Christians themselves.  As redemption is the central point of Christianity, public preaching and teaching had been directed chiefly, at first, to the passion, death, and resurrection of the Saviour of the world.  Then came discussions and controversies, naturally, about the person of Christ and his relation to the Godhead.  Among the early followers of our Lord there had been no pride of reason and a very simple creed.  Least of all did they seek to explain the mysteries of their faith by metaphysical reasoning.  Their doctrines were not brought to the test of philosophy.  It was enough for these simple and usually unimportant and unlettered people to accept generally accredited facts.  It was enough that Christ had suffered and died for them, in his boundless love, and that their souls would be saved in consequence.  And as to doctrines, all they sought to know was what our Lord and his apostles said.  Hence there was among them no system of theology, as we understand it, beyond the Apostles’ Creed.  But in the early part of the second century Justin Martyr, a converted philosopher, devoted much labor to a metaphysical development of the doctrine drawn from the expressions of the Apostle John in reference to the Logos, or Word, as identical with the Son.

In the third century the whole Church was agitated by the questions which grew out of the relations between the Father and the Son.  From the person of Christ—­so dear to the Church—­the discussion naturally passed to the Trinity.  Then arose the great Alexandrian school of theology, which attempted to explain and harmonize the revealed truths of the Bible by Grecian dialectics.  Hence interminable disputes among divines and scholars, as to whether the Father and the Logos were one; whether the Son was created or uncreated; whether or not he was subordinate to the Father; whether the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost were distinct, or one in essence.  Origen, Clement, and Dionysius were the most famous of the doctors who discussed these points.  All classes of Christians