OF THE ROMAN' EMPIRE.

341

ity.* But as the western provincials had the chap.

good fortune of deriving their religion from an_

orthodox source, they preserved with steadi-ness the doctrine which they had accepted withdocility; and when the arian pestilence ap-proached their frontier, they were supplied withthe seasonable preservative of the homoousion,by the paternal care of the Roman pontiff.

Their sentiments and their temper were dis- Couneiiofplayed in the memorable synod of Rimini, which A . dI'sIm,surpassed in numbers the council of Nice, sinceit was composed of above four hundred bishopsof Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain , and Illy-ricum. From the first debates it appeared, thatonly fourscore prelates adhered to the party,though they affected to anathematise the nameand memory of Arius. But this inferiority wascompensated by the advantages of skill, of ex-perience, and of discipline; and the minoritywas conducted by Yalens and Ursacius , twobishops of Illyricum, who had spent their livesin the intrigues of courts and councils, and whohad been trained under the eusebian banner, inthe religious wars of the East. By their argu-ments and negociations, they embarrassed, theyconfounded, they at last deceived, the honestsimplicity of the Latin bishops, who sufferedthe palladium of the faith to be extorted fromtheir hands by fraud and importunity, ratherthan by open violence. The council of Rimini

* The preference which the fourth council of the Lateran at lengthgave to a numerical rather than a genctieui unity (see Petav. tom. ii, I.iv, c. 13, p. 424), was favoured by the Latin language ; seems toexcite the idea ot substance, trinilas of qualities.