In the affair of Arius, he even ordered that whoever should find a book of that heretic, and not burn it, should be put to death.

In like manner Nestor was by Theodosius the Younger banished to an Egyptian oasis.
The pagan party included many of the old aristocratic families of the empire; it counted among its adherents all the disciples of the old philosophical schools.

It looked down on its antagonist with contempt.
It asserted that knowledge is to be obtained only by the laborious exercise of human observation and human reason.
The Christian party asserted that all knowledge is to be found in the Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church; that, in the written revelation, God had not only given a criterion of truth, but had furnished us all that he intended us to know.

The Scriptures, therefore, contain the sum, the end of all knowledge.

The clergy, with the emperor at their back, would endure no intellectual competition.
Thus came into prominence what were termed sacred and profane knowledge; thus came into presence of each other two opposing parties, one relying on human reason as its guide, the other on revelation.