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I CONCEIVE it right moreover not to leave unnoticed the
proceedings of the other religious bodies, viz. the Arians,
Novatians, and those who received their denominations from Macedonius
and Eunomius. For the Church once being divided, rested not in that
schism, but the separatists taking occasion from the slightest and most
frivolous pretences, disagreed among themselves. The manner and
time, as well as the causes for which they raised mutual dissensions,
we will state as we proceed. But let it be observed here, that the
emperor Theodosius persecuted none of them except Eunomius; but
inasmuch as the latter, by holding meetings in private houses at
Constantinople, where he read the works he had composed, corrupted
many with his doctrines, he ordered him to be sent into exile. Of the
other heretics he interfered with no one; nor did he constrain them to
hold communion with himself; but he allowed them all to assemble in
their own conventicles, and to entertain their own opinions on points
of Christian faith. Permission to build themselves churches without
the cities was granted to the rest: but inasmuch as the Novatians held
sentiments precisely identical with his own as to faith, he ordered
that they should be suffered to continue unmolested in their churches
within the cities, as I have before noticed. Concerning these I
think it opportune, however, to give in this place some farther
account, and shall therefore retrace a few circumstances in their
history.
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