The Council Agrees on the Faith

The next debate among the priests turned on doctrine. The emperor listened patiently to the speeches of both sides. He praised those who spoke well and rebuked those who showed a taste for quarreling, and he spoke kindly to each one, as far as he understood what he heard, for he was not entirely without practice in the Greek language. In the end all the priests agreed with one another and granted that the Son is of one substance with the Father. At the start of the gathering only seventeen spoke in favor of the opinion of Arius, but in the end most of these gave their assent to the common view. The emperor too deferred to this judgment, for he regarded the agreement of the gathering as God’s approval. He ordered that anyone who resisted it should at once be sent into exile, as guilty of trying to overthrow the divine definitions. [a]

I had thought it necessary to set down the actual document on the matter, as a record of the truth, so that later generations might have in a fixed and clear form the creed that brought peace at that time. But some devout friends who understood such matters advised that these truths ought to be spoken and heard only by the initiated and those who initiate them, and I agreed with their counsel, for it is quite possible that some of the uninitiated may read this book. While I have kept back those of the forbidden things about which I ought to keep silent, I have not left the reader altogether ignorant of the opinions held by the synod.