came forward and declared that he was not one of the Arians, but heartily detested their blasphemies.  The creed would do very well as it stood, and the Easterns had accepted it already; but if Phoebadius was not satisfied, he was welcome to propose additions.  A stringent series of anathemas was therefore drawn up against Arius and all his misbelief.  Valens himself contributed one against ’those who say that the Son of God is a creature like other creatures.’  The court party accepted everything, and the council met for a final reading of the amended creed.  Shout after shout of joy rang through the church when Valens protested that the heresies were none of his, and with his own lips pronounced the whole series of anathemas; and when Claudius of Picenum produced a few more rumours of heresy, ’which my lord and brother Valens has forgotten,’ they were disavowed with equal readiness.  The hearts of all men melted towards the old dissembler, and the bishops dispersed from Ariminum in the full belief that the council would take its place in history among the bulwarks of the faith.

[Sidenote:  Conferences at Constantinople.]

The Western council was dissolved in seeming harmony, but a strong minority disputed the conclusions of the Easterns at Seleucia.  Both parties, therefore, hurried to Constantinople.  But there Acacius was in his element.  He held a splendid position as the bishop of a venerated church, the disciple and successor of Eusebius, and himself a patron of learning and a writer of high repute.  His fine gifts of subtle thought and ready energy, his commanding influence and skilful policy, marked him out for a glorious work in history, and nothing but his own falseness degraded him to be the greatest living master of backstairs intrigue.  If Athanasius is the Demosthenes of the Nicene age, Acacius will be its AEschines.  He had found his account in abandoning conservatism for pure Arianism, and was now preparing to complete his victory by a new treachery to the Anomoeans.  He had anathematized unlike at Seleucia, and now sacrificed Aetius to the Emperor’s dislike of him.  After this it became possible to enforce the prohibition of the Nicene of like essence.  Meanwhile the final report arrived from Ariminum.  Valens at once gave an Arian meaning to the anathemas of Phoebadius.  ‘Not a creature like other creatures.’  Then creature he is.  ‘Not from nothing.’  Quite so:  from the will of the Father.  ‘Eternal.’  Of course, as regards the future.  However, the Homoeans repeated the process of swearing that they were not Arians; the Emperor threatened; and at last the Seleucian deputies signed the decisions of Ariminum late on the last night of the year 359.

[Sidenote:  Deposition of the Semiarians].