others had lost the right arm. Among the latter sufferers was Paphnutius,[1] of Egypt. In short, this was an assembly of martyrs. Yet this holy and celebrated assembly was not free from those of a contentious spirit; there were certainly few of this class, yet they were as dangerous as sunken rocks, for they concealed the evil, while they profanely coincided in the blasphemy of Arius.
CHAPTER VII.
THE COUNTRIES WHICH WERE REPRESENTED AT THE UNIVERSAL SYNOD.—INTERESTING CHARACTERS, CONFESSORS. ETC., PRESENT.—PRELIMINARY DISPUTATIONS.—THREE DISTINCT PARTIES.—ARIUS SUMMONED.—ATHANASIUS APPEARS.
Those who held the chief places among the ministers of God were convened from all the churches which have filled all Europe, Africa, and Asia.[2] And one sacred edifice, dilated, as it were, by God, contained within it, on the same occasion, both Syrians and Cilicians, Phœnicians, Arabs and Palestinians, and in addition to these, Egyptians, Thebans, Libyans, and those who came from Mesopotamia.[3] And,
- ↑ According to other authors, he had suffered his right eye to be cut out. Perhaps the word "latter" refers to only part of the last clause, not to that respecting his arm.
- ↑ I take these sketches from Socrates, where he transcribes Eusebius Pamphilus; but partly from "De Vita Constantini" itself: Liber iii. ch. 7. Mansi (ii. 1073) says there were probably 2,000 persons attending the Council.
- ↑ A complete list of the bishops present is not in existence, although Socrates says there was such a list in the Synodicon of Athanasius, a book which is not known to be now extant.
The following are all the names I can gather from the ancient records. The greatest number were Orientals. Those of known Arian proclivities are designated by stars (*). They may be considered the leading men of that party in the Nicene Synod.
