Jewish plan only according to the day of the month, from the churches of the West and others that agreed with them who fixed it according to the day of the week, was decided in favour of the Western usage. At the time many thought this as important as the Arian question. The Meletians were condemned and their ordination disallowed. Lastly, certain canons of discipline were passed. But the council had been summoned to settle the Arian dispute and its decision on this was absolute and peremptory. Then Constantine came in with the power of the State to enforce the ruling of the Church, denouncing the Arians as "Porphyrians," banishing Arius and his few determined followers, and ordering all Arian books to be burnt—which indeed was not so cruel as the action of the princes of the time of the Inquisition, who burnt the heretics themselves—and threatening death to anybody detected in concealing a book compiled by Arius[1]—a most significant, a truly ominous threat.
Nevertheless, the dispute was far from being settled. Instead of being the end, this was but the beginning of the great Arian controversy which was to ravage the Church and almost rend the empire for more than half a century longer, and even after that to linger on and break out again in unexpected quarters. It is true that at first the Arian protest was reduced to insignificant proportions. Two of Arius's friends deserted him and signed the creed; so that of the five who had supported Arius throughout the discussion only two bishops stood by him at the . end and shared his penalty of exile. But a sign of coming trouble might have been detected in the conciliatory action of one of the most pacific of men. Eusebius of Cæsarea, the famous historian, the most learned scholar of his day, wrote to his Church explaining the sense in which he had signed the creed; and his explanation amounted to what was afterwards known as "Semi-Arianism," for he interpreted the test word "homoousios" in the sense of resemblance, saying that "it suggests that the Son of God bears no
