become the way of expressing belief in a particular doctrine, we can easily see that the controversy may, after all, have been as important as it was most certainly believed to be by both sides that took part in it. The difference between the two words homoousois and homoiousios may seem insignificant, yet underlying it was the great question which convulsed the whole Church at the time of the Arian controversy. In our own day it may seem a paltry subject of dispute whether a clergyman should stand at the side or end of the holy table; yet it becomes quite different when the posture comes to be regarded as the outward expression of doctrine. In somewhat the same way this Easter controversy was regarded. It was the visible method of declaring to which Church a man belonged. As Bede says of Saint Aidan, 'He could not keep Easter contrary to the customs of those who had sent him.'[1] In other words, this was his method of declaring that he owed his allegiance to the Church of Iona, and not to the Church of Rome.
Another difference, unimportant in itself, but zealously clung to for the same reason, was the tonsure. The practice of shaving the head in token of dedication to God was found among some heathen nations, and was not unknown among the Jews. It was introduced into the Christian Church in connection with monasticism. In the Eastern Church the tonsure consisted in shaving the whole head; in the Western, only the top of the head was shaved, leaving a circle of hair which was supposed to have a resemblance to the crown of thorns. The Celtic tonsure differed from both, and consisted in shaving
- ↑ Bede, Eccl. Hist., iii. 25.
