CHAPTER XX

DIVISIONS AMONG THE ARIANS AND OTHER HERERTICS

I CONCEIVE it right moreover to notice the proceedings of the other religious bodies, viz. the Arians, Novatians, and those who received their denominations from Macedonius and Eunomius. For the church once being divided, rested not in that schism, but the separatists taking occasion from the most frivolous pretences, disagreed among themselves. The manner and time, as well as the causes for which they raised mutual dissensions, will be stated as we proceed. But let it be observed here, that the emperor Theodosius persecuted none of them except Eunomius, whom he banished; because by holding meetings in private houses at Constantinople, where he read the works he had composed, he corrupted many with his doctrines. The other heretics were not interfered with by the emperor, nor did he constrain them to hold communion with himself; but he allowed them all to assemble in their own conventicles, and to entertain their own opinions on points of Christian faith. Permission to build themselves oratories without the cities was granted to the rest: but inasmuch as the Novatians held sentiments precisely identical with his own as to faith, he ordered that they should be suffered to continue unmolested in their churches within the cities, as I have before noticed. I think it opportune however to give in this place some farther account of them, and shall therefore retrace a few circumstances in their history.