The trinitarian dispute.  In the Trinitarian controversy, which first broke out in Egypt—­Egypt, the land of Trinities—­the chief point in discussion was to define the position of “the Son.”  There lived in Alexandria a presbyter of the name of Arius, a disappointed candidate for the office of bishop.  He took the ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son.  But this assertion evidently denied the coeternity of the three persons of the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them, and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist.  Hereupon, the bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius, displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and pagans, who formed a very large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical representations of the contest on the stage—­the point of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son.

Such was the violence the controversy at length assumed, that the matter had to be referred to the emperor.  At first he looked upon the dispute as altogether frivolous, and perhaps in truth inclined to the assertion of Arius, that in the very nature of the thing a father must be older than his son.  So great, however, was the pressure laid upon him, that he was eventually compelled to summon the Council of Nicea, which, to dispose of the conflict, set forth a formulary or creed, and attached to it this anathema:  “The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes those who say that there was a time when the Son of God was not, and that, before he was begotten, he was not, and that he was made out of nothing, or out of another substance or essence, and is created, or changeable, or alterable.”  Constantine at once enforced the decision of the council by the civil power.

A few years subsequently the Emperor Theodosius prohibited sacrifices, made the inspection of the entrails of animals a capital offense, and forbade any one entering a temple.  He instituted Inquisitors of Faith, and ordained that all who did not accord with the belief of Damasus, the Bishop of Rome, and Peter, the Bishop of Alexandria, should be driven into exile, and deprived of civil rights.  Those who presumed to celebrate Easter on the same day as the Jews, he condemned to death.  The Greek language was now ceasing to be known in the West, and true learning was becoming extinct.