Page:The age of Justinian and Theodora (Volume 1).djvu/302

 of Bithynia, and there formulated the Nicene creed, which branded as heretics the presbyter Arius and his supporters for asserting that the Word, the Son, the man Jesus, had not eternally existed as of one substance with the Father, but had been created out of nothing at some date of an inconceivably remote past. Under the emperors who succeeded Constantine, however, the Arians returned to power in the East, and for long oppressed their opponents, the Catholics, until they were finally reduced to impotence by the orthodox Theodosius I. But centuries were yet to elapse before the Church could desist from weaving those subtleties of dogma as to the inexpressible nature of the Godhead, in the study of which later theologians discover an exercise for their memory rather than for their understanding. Numerous other councils were*