The controversy between the Arians and the Athanasians exercised the leaders of the Church from the time of Constantine to the Second Ecumenic Council in 381. All the great and commanding minds of the age were with the Trinitarians, each condemning the Arian heresy in his own peculiar way. One leader was Ephraim, the Syrian monk, who wept night and day for the sins of mankind and for his own, and who poured forth verse and prose in defence of orthodoxy. It was said his very writings wept, even his panegyrics and festival homilies flowed with tears. His psalms and hymns, however, animated his monkish companions, and were the occupation and delight of all the earnest believers, and all his thoughts and emotions were rigidly Trinitarian. St. Basil the monk, whose boast it was to be "without wife, without property, without flesh, almost without blood," was equally zealous for the Trinity, and as its champion he was made Archbishop of Cæsarea. St. Gregory of Nazianzen was equally zealous and eloquent in the same cause; and even the Arian monks and virgins were excited to tumults and bloodshed by his exasperating popularity. Chrysostom in the same cause offended the Empress, who was inclined to the Arians. He was banished; but the Empress, on seeing the commotion caused by an earthquake, was afraid, and he was recalled amid the enthusiasm of the whole inhabitants, who went forth to welcome his return. His renewed insults led the Emperor to send his military officers to seize Chrysostom at the altar during the celebration of the Sacrament, and he was carried off. The same night the church took fire, for which his followers were blamed, and he never returned from exile. The cause of the Trinitarians triumphed at last and became the settled faith. ATHANASIUS ATTACKED IN HIS OWN CHURCH.