Eusebius of Nicomedia, afterward of Constantinople, Theognis of Nicæa, Maris of Chalcedon, and Menophantus of Ephesus, were among the most resolute defenders of Arius. It is curious to reflect that they represent the four sees of the four orthodox councils of the Church. The three last named soon vanish away from history. But Eusebius of Nicomedia, friend, namesake, perhaps even brother of the bishop of Cæsarea, was a personage of high importance both then and afterward. As Athanasius was called "the Great" by the orthodox, so was Eusebius by the Arians. Even miracles were ascribed to him. Originally bishop of Beyruth (Berytus), he had been translated to the see of Nicomedia, then the capital of the Eastern Empire. He had been a favorite of the Emperor's rival Licinius, and had thus become intimate with Constantia, the Emperor's sister, the wife, now the widow of Licinius. Through her and through his own distant relationship with the imperial family he kept a hold on the court which he never lost, even to the moment when he stood by the dying bed of the Emperor, years afterward, and received him into the Church. We must not be too hard on the Christianity of Eusebius, if we wish to vindicate the baptism of Constantine.
Not far from the great prelate of the capital of the East would be the representative of what was now a small Greek town, but in five years from that time would supersede altogether the glories of Nicomedia. Metrophanes, bishop of Byzantium, was detained by old age and sickness, but Alexander, his presbyter, himself seventy years of age, was there with a little secretary of the name of Paul, not more than twelve years old, one of the readers and collectors of the Byzantine Church. Alexander had already corresponded with his namesake on the Arian controversy, and was apparently attached firmly to the orthodox side.
Besides their more regular champions the orthodox party of Greece and Asia Minor had a few very eccentric allies. One was Acesius, the Novatian, "the Puritan," summoned by Constantine from Byzantium with Alexander, from the deep respect entertained by the Emperor for his ascetic character. He was attended by a boy, Auxanon, who lived to a great age afterward as a presbyter in the same sect. This child was then living with a hermit, Eutychianus, on the heights of the neighboring mountain of the Bithynian Olympus, and he descended from these solitudes to attend upon Acesius. From him we have obtained some of the most curious details of the council.
Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, was among the bishops, the fiercest opponent of Arius, and, when the active deacon of Alexandria was not present, seems to have borne the brunt of the arguments. Yet, if we may judge from his subsequent history, Athanasius could never have been quite at ease in leaving the cause in his hands. He was one of those awkward theologians who never could attack Arianism without falling into Sabellianism; and in later life he was twice deposed from his see for heresy, once excommunicated by Athanasius himself; and in the present form of the Nicene Creed one clause—that which asserts that "the kingdom of Christ shall have no end"—is said to have been expressly aimed at his exaggerated language.
And now come two, who in the common pictures of the council always appear together, of whom the one probably left the deepest impression on his contemporaries; and the other, if he were present at all, on the subsequent traditions of the council. From the island of Cyprus there arrived the simple shepherd Spyridion, a shepherd both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. Strange stories were told by his fellow-islanders to the historian Socrates of the thieves who were miraculously caught in attempting to steal his sheep, and of Spyridion's good-humored reply when he found them in the morning, and gave them a ram, that they might not have sat up all night for nothing.
Another tale, exactly similar to the fantastic Mussulman legends which hand about stories of Jerusalem, told how he had gained an answer from his dead daughter Irene to tell where a certain deposit was hidden. Two less marvellous, but more instructive, stories bring out the simplicity of his character. He rebuked a celebrated preacher at Cyprus for altering, in a quotation from the gospels, the homely word for "bed" into "couch." "What! are you better than He who said 'bed,' that you are ashamed to use his words?" On occasion of a way-worn traveller coming to him in Lent, finding no other food in the house, he presented him with salted pork; and when the stranger declined, saying that he could not as a Christian break his fast: "So much the less reason," he said, "have you for scruple; to the pure all things are pure."
A characteristic legend attaches to the account of his journey to the council. It was his usual practice to travel on foot. But on this occasion the length of the journey, as well as the dignity of his office, induced him to ride, in company with his deacon, on two mules, a white and a chestnut. One night at his arrival at a caravansary where a cavalcade of orthodox bishops were already assembled, the mules were turned out to pasture, while he retired to his devotions. The bishops had conceived an alarm lest the cause of orthodoxy should suffer in the council by the ignorance or awkwardness of the Shepherd of Cyprus when opposed to the subtleties of the Alexandrian heretic. Accordingly, taking advantage of his encounter, they determined to throw a decisive impediment in his way. They cut off the heads of his two mules, and then, as is the custom in oriental travelling, started on their journey before sunrise. Spyridion also rose, but was met by his terrified deacon announcing the unexpected disaster. On arriving at the spot the saint bade the deacon attach the heads to the dead bodies. He did so, and at a sign from the bishop the two mules with their restored heads shook themselves as if from a deep sleep, and started to their feet. Spyridion and the deacon mounted and soon overtook the travellers. As the day broke the prelates and the deacon were alike astonished at seeing that he, performing the annexation in the dark and in haste, had fixed the heads on the wrong shoulders, so that the white mule had now a chestnut head, and the chestnut mule had the head of its white companion. Thus the miracle was doubly attested, the bishops doubly discomfited, and the simplicity of Spyridion doubly exemplified.
Many more stories might be told of him, but, to use the words of an ancient writer who has related some of them, "from the claws you can make out the lion." Of all the Nicene fathers, it may yet be said that in a certain curious sense he is the only one who has survived the decay of time. After resting for many years in his native Cyprus his body was transferred to Constantinople, where it remained till a short time before the fall of the empire. It was thence conveyed to Corfu, where it is still preserved. Hence by a strange resuscitation of fame he has become the patron saint, one might almost say the divinity, of the Ionian Islands. Twice a year in solemn procession he is carried round the streets of Corfu. Hundreds of Corfutes bear his name, now abridged into the familiar diminutive of "Spiro." The superstitious veneration entertained for the old saint is a constant source of quarrel between the English residents and the native Ionians. But the historian may be pardoned for gazing with a momentary interest on the dead hands, now black and withered, that subscribed the Creed of Nicæa.
Still more famous—and still more apocryphal, at least in his attendance at Nicæa—is Nicolas, bishop of Myra. Not mentioned by a single ancient historian, he yet figures in the traditional pictures of the council as the foremost figure of all. Type as he is of universal benevolence to sailors, to thieves, to the victims of thieves, to children—known by his broad red face and flowing white hair—the traditions of the East always represent him as standing in the midst of the assembly, and suddenly roused by righteous indignation to assail the heretic Arius with a tremendous box on the ear.
One more group of deputies closes the arrivals. The Nicene Council was a council of the Eastern Church, and Eastern seemingly were at least three hundred and ten of the three hundred and eighteen bishops. But the West was not entirely unrepresented. Nicasius from France, Marcus from Calabria, Capito from Sicily, Eustorgius from Milan—where a venerable church is still dedicated to his memory—Domnus of Stridon in Pannonia were the less conspicuous deputies of the western provinces.