Conclusion.
Now that we have traced the history of Arianism to its final overthrow, let us once more glance at the causes of its failure. Arianism, then, was an illogical compromise. It went too far for heathenism, not far enough for Christianity. It conceded Christian worship to the Lord, yet made him no better than a heathen demigod. It confessed a Heavenly Father, as in Christian duty bound, yet identified Him with the mysterious and inaccessible Supreme of the philosophers. As a scheme of Christianity, it was overmatched at every point by the Nicene doctrine; as a concession to heathenism, it was outbid by the growing worship of saints and relics. Debasing as was the error of turning saints into demigods, it seems to have shocked Christian feeling less than the Arian audacity which degraded the Lord of saints to the level of his creatures. But the crowning weakness of Arianism was the incurable badness of its method. Whatever were the errors of Athanasius—and in details they were not a few—his work was without doubt a faithful search for truth by every means attainable to him. He may be misled by his ignorance of Hebrew or by the defective exegesis of his time; but his eyes are always open to the truth, from whatever quarter it may come to him. In breadth of view as well as grasp of doctrine, he is beyond comparison with the rabble of controversialists who cursed or still invoke his name. The gospel was truth and life to him, not a mere subject for strife and debate. It was far otherwise with the Arians. On one side their doctrine was a mass of presumptuous theorizing, supported by alternate scraps of obsolete traditionalism and uncritical text-mongering; on the other it was a lifeless system of spiritual pride and hard unlovingness. Therefore Arianism perished. So too every system, whether of science or theology, must likewise perish which presumes like Arianism to discover in the feeble brain of man a law to circumscribe the revelation of our Father's love in Christ.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE.
269. Claudius defeats the Goths at Naissus.
272. Aurelian defeats Zenobia.
284-305. Diocletian.
Cir. 297. Birth of Athanasius.
303-313. The great persecution.