ABSTRACT

THE date for the assembling of the Council of Nicaea was May 20, 325, and it lasted into August. It was attended by about 300 bishops; Eustathius gives the number as 270, while popular prejudice preferred the number 318, but that was probably arrived at through the mystical connexions of the number of the armed servants of Abraham (Gen. xiv 14). In spite of the Emperor’s effort to make the Council as representative as possible, most of the attendant bishops were from the East. Many of them were still bearing marks of the sufferings inflicted upon them during the persecutions. Sylvester, the Bishop of Rome, was not present, but he was represented by two legates. With some of the combatants we have already met, while others now come before our notice for the first time.