Of the characters present I will copy sketches of a very few:
“The aged Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, was the only one present known by the title of pope. Papa was the special address given to the head of the Alexandrian church long before the name of Patriarch or Archbishop.”
“Close beside Pope Alexander is a small, insignificant young man of hardly twenty-five, of lively manners and speech, and of bright, serene countenance. Though he is but the deacon or archdeacon of Alexandria (at this time), he has closely riveted the attention of the assembly by the vehemence of his arguments. That small, insignificant young man is the great Athanasius,” the chief opposer of Arius, and defender of the Nicene creed.
“Next to these was an important presbyter of Alexandria, the parish priest of its principal church. In appearance he is the very opposite of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, tall, thin, and apparently unable to support his stature. He would be handsome, but for the deadly pallor of his face and a downcast look caused by weakness of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal complaint. There is a wild look about him that is at times startling. His dress and demeanor are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short sleeves, and a scarf of half size, the mark of an austere life, and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement. Yet with all this there is a sweetness in his voice, and a winning, earnest, fascinating manner. This strange, captivating giant is the heretic Arius.” He is described as a man of peculiar loveliness and purity of character from his childhood, of great personal power and influence, and as exerting, at whatever cost of self-sacrifice, an uncompromising resistance to the popular worldly policy which he believed would degrade and enslave the church in its subordination to the temporal power.
Two notable characters, Potammon and Paphnutius, came from the interior of Egypt. They had lived a great part of their lives in the desert. Both had lost the right eye, and suffered otherwise in the persecution. Bishop Paul, from near the Euphrates, had had his hands paralyzed by the searing of the muscles with a red-hot iron.
There was Jacob of Nisibis, who had lived for years as a hermit, on the mountains, in forests and caves, browsing on roots and leaves, and clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This dress and manner of life he retained after he became a bishop.
From the distant east came John the Persian, Aristaces, son of Gregory the illuminator, and founder of the Armenian church, and Eusebius the Great, of Nicomedia, were of the number. Also Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, the interpreter, chaplain and confessor of Constantine, and the father of ecclesiastical history. One of the most interesting characters, of whom many remarkable stories are told, was Spyridion, from the island of Cyprus, a shepherd both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. Hosius, Bishop of Cordova in Spain, was one of the most powerful and revered men in the council. He had been a confessor during the persecutions of Maximin. The council was opened by the emperor in person. It continued about twenty days.
A creed was first produced which all could sign—one which would doubtless now be pronounced full and orthodox by Christians generally. The part relating to the Son reads as follows: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the first born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made,” etc.
But full as this was it did not touch the test point in controversy. That point turned upon two Greek words, signifying respectively, “of the same substance,” and “of like substance.” The Arians admitted that Christ in his divine nature was of like substance with the Father, but denied that he was of the same substance.
Athanasius and his party feared that this would lead, not to the denial of the divinity of Christ, but to the belief in two Gods instead of one. “Polytheism, Paganism, Hellenism was the enemy from which the church had just been delivered by Constantine, and this was the error under whose dominion it was feared the teaching of Arius might bring them back.” These scarred and maimed veterans of Christianity had suffered because of their steadfast testimony to the truth that there is one God; and here in the first great council of the entire church the creed was formulated which has stood through the centuries as a protest and guard against such distinction of persons in the Trinity as shall make a plurality of Gods. The Nicene creed as adopted had the additional clause inserted regarding the Son—of the substance of the Father.