It was long before the doctrine was finally settled. Not until early in the fourth century, at the Council of Nicæa, did the Church define the dogma in its fulness. During this period different opinions prevailed respecting it, until at last, on the question of Arianism, two great parties made it their battle-ground. In the controversy the orthodox contention was philosophically justifiable. Christ, as God the relative, had to be of one substance with God the absolute, or no absolute God remained; while if in substance also he was not eternal, he ceased to be God at all. Arianism, in fact, was simply Christian rationalism; it endeavoured to explain the relationship of God the Father and God the Son. But the essence of the dogma is pure inexplicable mystery, and rationalism could not touch it without destroying it. In the Nicene Creed it is stated in its proper form. “I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, begotten of his father before all worlds, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” Here the philosophical basis of the dogma is shown in the clearest manner. God was modified and Christ produced before creation began, and by means of Christ the work of creation was performed. We must carefully remember that the Nicene Council did not assert the eternal existence of Christ as a distinct being. He existed eternally, but in God the absolute before the creation of things. This is declared plainly in the damnatory clauses attached to the original creed by the Council, one of which anathematized him who should say that Christ had not existed before he was begotten. It was not until long afterwards, in the Athanasian Creed, that the eternal existence of Christ as a person of the then fully developed Trinity was made a dogma of the Church, notwithstanding the absurd contradiction in terms involved in its statement. As expressed in the Nicene Creed, putting aside the misleading words “Father” and “Son,” inherited from an earlier belief, there is no such direct contradiction in the doctrine. God as one existed eternally; God as two persons only from the beginning of things.