Centuries rolled by, however, before the doctrine of Christ Jesus, the Angel-Messiah, became a settled question, an established tenet in the Christian faith. The dignity of Christ Jesus was measured by _private judgment_, according to the indefinite _rule of Scripture_, or _tradition_ or _reason_. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established _on the ruins of Arianism_, the faith of the Catholics trembled _on the edge of a precipice_ where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall; and the _manifold inconveniences of their creed_ were aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce that _God himself_, the second person of an equal and consubstantial Trinity, was _manifested in the flesh_,[137:3] that the Being who pervades the universe _had been confined in the womb of Mary_; that his eternal duration had been marked by the days, and months, and years of human existence; _that the Almighty God had been scourged and crucified_; that his impassible essence _had felt pain and anguish_; that his omniscience was _not exempt from ignorance_; and that _the source of life and immortality expired on Mount Calvary_. These alarming consequences were affirmed with unblushing simplicity by Apollinaris, Bishop of Laodicea, and one of the luminaries of the Church. The son of a learned grammarian, he was skilled in all the sciences of Greece; eloquence, erudition, and philosophy, conspicuous in the volumes of Apollinaris, were humbly devoted to the service of religion. The worthy friend of Athanasius, the worthy antagonist of Julian, he bravely wrestled with the Arians and polytheists, _and though he affected the rigor of geometrical demonstration_, his commentaries revealed the literal and allegorical sense of the Scriptures. _A mystery_, which had long floated in the looseness of popular belief, was defined by his perverse diligence in a technical form, _and he first proclaimed the memorable words, "One incarnate nature of Christ._"[138:1] This was about A. D. 362, he being Bishop of Laodicea, in Syria, at that time.[138:2]