The victory seemed won when the last great enemy was driven into the desert, and the intriguers hasted to the spoil.  They forgot that the West was only overawed for the moment, that Egypt was devoted to its patriarch, that there was a strong opposition in the East, and that the conservatives, who had won the battle for them, were not likely to take up Arianism at the bidding of their unworthy leaders.  Amongst the few prominent Eusebians of the West were two disciples of Arius who held the neighbouring bishoprics of Mursa and Singidunum, the modern Belgrade.  Valens and Ursacius were young men in 335, but old enough to take a part in the infamous Egyptian commission of the council of Tyre.  Since that time they had been well to the front in the Eusebian plots.  In 347, however, they had found it prudent to make their peace with Julius of Rome by confessing the falsehood of their charges against Athanasius.  Of late they had been active on the winning side, and enjoyed much influence with Constantius.  Thinking it now safe to declare more openly for Arianism, they called a few bishops to Sirmium in the summer of 357, and issued a manifesto of their belief for the time being, to the following general effect.  ’We acknowledge one God the Father, also His only Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.  But two Gods must not be preached.  The Father is without beginning, invisible, and in every respect greater than the Son, who is subject to Him together with the creatures.  The Son is born of the Father, God of God, by an inscrutable generation, and took flesh or body, that is, man, through which he suffered.  The words essence, of the same essence, of like essence, ought not to be used, because they are not found in Scripture, and because the divine generation is beyond our understanding.’  Here is something to notice besides the repeated hints that the Son is no better than a creature.  It was a new policy to make the mystery in the manner of the divine generation an excuse for ignoring the fact.  In this case the plea of ignorance is simply impertinent.

[Sidenote:  Its results in general.]

The Sirmian manifesto is the turning-point of the whole contest.  Arianism had been so utterly crushed at Nicaea that it had never again till now appeared in a public document.  Henceforth the conservatives were obliged in self-defence to look for a Nicene alliance against the Anomoeans.  Suspicions and misunderstandings, and at last mere force, delayed its consolidation till the reign of Theodosius, but the Eusebian coalition fell to pieces the moment Arianism ventured to have a policy of its own.

[Sidenote:  (1.) In the West.]

Ursacius and Valens had blown a trumpet which was heard from one end of the Empire to the other.  Its avowal of Arianism caused a stir even in the West.  Unlike the creeds of Antioch, it was a Western document, drawn up in Latin by Western bishops.  The spirit of the West was fairly roused, now that the battle was clearly for the faith.  The bishops of Rome, Cordova, Trier, Poitiers, Toulouse, Calaris, Milan, and Vercellae were in exile, but Gaul was now partly shielded from persecution by the varying fortunes of Julian’s Alemannic war.  Thus everything increased the ferment.  Phoebadius of Agen took the lead, and a Gaulish synod at once condemned the ‘blasphemy.’