"Ah! bishop," said the emperor, "it is the great question of our age. It involves in itself the whole field of controversy between the old civilizations and the new; between paganism and Christianity; between Jesus Christ and the rulers of mankind. The doctrines of Arius are the utterances of that primitive Christianity which proclaimed the fraternity of all men, condemned war, slavery, and private-property rights. It maintaineth Jesus as the king of a kingdom established in the world; a real and actual government among the Christian communities, which may yield obedience to laws that do not fetter conscience, but does not acknowledge allegiance to any human emperor or king. Its universal prevalence would speedily render all government over the people ridiculous and unnecessary; for Christ would be the only king, and all men brethren, free and equal, as was the case in Moasia, under the apostolical Ulfilas, until I was constrained to send an army thither and force the Goths to give up their communal organization, and adopt the Roman laws and customs. The system of Arius, primitive Christianity, dear bishop, would leave no room for Constantine on earth. But the doctrine of Hosius, by elevating Jesus to actual Godhead, leaveth his earthly career a mere manifestation, or appearance, of the divine in human flesh; and, since the God hath returned to his former ineffable condition, it leaveth his kingdom to be only a pure and lofty spiritual phantasm--and leaves mankind for Constantine to govern. Thou seest that there can be no rivalry between the Christianity of Hosius and the sovereigns of this world, while the faith of Arius would soon subvert all human governments, and dethrone every prince on earth. Beyond any question, the emperors, from Nero to my own times, sought only to preserve the empire by persecuting the Christians, and properly described Christianity as ’a baleful and malignant superstition,’ ’a criminal association,’ ’a new society that departed from the laws and ceremonies of our fathers, inventing a new government for itself inconsistent with the imperial laws and rights.’ They understood that Roman sovereignty could not maintain itself against a rapidly increasing association that proposed to abolish war, slavery, private rights of property, offices, rank, and prerogative; and they tried to stamp it out of existence. These emperors strove to defend the empire by exterminating the Christians; if they had been greater men, they would have adopted the new religion, pruned it of all doctrines that might menace the imperial authority, translating Jesus to the highest heaven, and taking for themselves his place upon the earth--as I have done. I am, therefore, the champion of the Holy Trinity, as Hosius hath defined it; and at the right time Arius must be condemned as a heretic. For I will no more suffer him to build up the churches of the East upon this basis of primitive Christianity than I would suffer Ulfilas to