of Christian life.  Fresh from the fiery trial of the last great persecution, whose scarred and mutilated veterans were sprinkled through the council-hall, the church of God was entering on a still mightier conflict with the spirit of the world.  If their fathers had been faithful unto death or saved a people from the world, their sons would have to save the world itself and tame its Northern conquerors.  Was that a time to say of Christ, ’But as for this man, we know not whence he is’?

[Sidenote:  Revision of the Caesarean creed.]

Athanasius and his friends made a virtue of necessity, and disconcerted the plans of Eusebius by promptly accepting his creed.  They were now able to propose a few amendments in it, and in this way they meant to fight out the controversy.  It was soon found impossible to avoid a searching revision.  Ill-compacted clauses invited rearrangement, and older churches, like Jerusalem or Antioch, might claim to share with Caesarea the honour of giving a creed to the whole of Christendom.  Moreover, several of the Caesarean phrases seemed to favour the opinions which the bishops had agreed to condemn.  ‘First-born of all creation’ does not necessarily mean more than that he existed before other things were made.  ‘Begotten before all worlds’ is just as ambiguous, or rather worse, for the Arians understood ‘begotten’ to mean ‘created.’  Again, ‘was made flesh’ left it unsettled whether the Lord took anything more than a human body.  These were serious defects, and the bishops could not refuse to amend them.  After much careful work, the following was the form adopted:—­

[Sidenote:  The Nicene Creed.]

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty,
maker of all things, both visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God,
begotten of the Father, an only-begotten—­
that is, from the essence (ousia) of the Father
God from God,
light from light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
being of one essence (homoousion) with the Father,
by whom all things were made,
both things in heaven and things on earth: 
who for us men and for our salvation came down and was made flesh,
was made man, suffered, and rose again the third day,
ascended into heaven,
cometh to judge quick and dead;
And in the Holy Spirit.

  But those who say that
        ‘there was once when he was not,’ and
        ‘before he was begotten he was not,’ and
        ‘he was made of things that were not,’
        or maintain that the Son of God is of a different essence
          (hypostasis or ousia[6])
        or created or subject to moral change or alteration—­
  these doth the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematize.

[Footnote 6:  The two words are used as synonyms.]

[Sidenote:  Its doctrine.]