He Calls a Council at Nicaea

Then, as if to bring a divine army into the field against this enemy, he summoned a general council, and invited bishops from every quarter to come quickly, in letters that expressed the honor in which he held them. Nor was this simply a bare command; the emperor’s goodwill did much to see it carried out. He allowed some of them the use of the public transport, and supplied others with plenty of pack animals for the journey. The place chosen for the synod was also suited to the occasion: the city of Nicaea in Bithynia, named from “Victory.” As soon as the imperial order became generally known, all of them hurried there with the greatest eagerness, as if racing to outrun one another. They were drawn by the expectation of a happy outcome to the conference, by the hope of enjoying peace in their own day, and by the wish to see something new and strange in the person of so admirable an emperor. Now when they had all assembled, it was plain that the whole proceeding was the work of God. For men who had been separated as widely as possible, not only in opinion but also in person, and by differences of country, place and nation, were brought together here and gathered within the walls of a single city, forming, as it were, a vast garland of priests made up of all kinds of the choicest flowers. [a]