Unknown artist, 14th C.: Consecration of St. Hilary. The Arian heretics forced him into exile for four years, though he continued to write and administer his see; the epic battle over the doctrine of the Trinity arose in the 3rd Century, lasted for hundreds of years and has never entirely gone away; it rests on a single sentence in the Gospel of John where Jesus says, “The Father is greater than I.”
Arius, a priest from Alexandria, took that to mean that Jesus was created and subordinate to the Father, not his equal – though John’s Gospel begins with the assertion that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” St. Hilary was one of the foremost thinkers to put down the heresy. (Wikipedia)
