Page:Introduction to the Assyrian church.djvu/135

Rh of the truth at stake was perceived and understood that men waxed so fierce in the controversy about them. To assert that it was so is probably no nearer to the truth than the gibe that the heat excited by theological controversy stands in inverse ratio to the importance of the questions discussed. No doubt men on each side felt, dimly or clearly, that it was Truth for which they struggled, and hence came their fierceness; but, speaking generally, nobody would dream of saying that the very ordinary men of the fifth and sixth centuries, who shouted themselves hoarse over these highest questions, understood their real, if unseen, practical bearing. Thus we are thrown back upon the question, How was it that ordinary men, of passions not wholly unlike our own, were moved to such fury by questions which to the ordinary man of to-day seem so unpractical?

Of course it might have been infinitely better, both for the Church and the world, if the problems of theology could have been confined to the study, and discussed calmly there till agreement was reached; if they could have been kept "out of the street," and so have avoided both the raising of the dust and the soiling of themselves in it. Had every theologian of the time possessed the temperament, if not the talent, of an Athanasius, that might have been possible. As, however, it was morally impossible that a party defeated in conclave should not appeal to popular support outside it, that "might have been" may be put aside; and it must be remembered that struggle, with all its unedifying incidents and consequences, is better for the souls of men than a peace based on indifference to all except things mundane.

To us it appears that the discussion, thus inevitably brought "into the street," raised heat simply because the odium theologicum, if a very ridiculous,