A Council Called at Tyre over the Disputes in Egypt

Meanwhile the spirit of envy, the enemy of all good, like a dark cloud blocking the sun’s brightest rays, tried to spoil the joy of this festival by stirring up quarrels again to disturb the peace of the churches of Egypt. But our emperor, favored by God, once more called together a synod of many bishops, and set them in battle array, as it were, like the army of God, against this malicious spirit. He summoned them from the whole of Egypt and Libya, from Asia, and from Europe, first to settle the questions in dispute, and then to dedicate the sacred building mentioned above. He told them to settle their differences on the way, at the capital city of Phoenicia. He reminded them that they had no right, while they nursed hostility toward one another, to take part in the service of God, since his law expressly forbids those who are at odds to offer their gift until they have first been reconciled and are disposed to peace with one another. These were the wholesome precepts the emperor kept constantly and vividly before his own mind. In keeping with them he urged the bishops to take up their present duties in a spirit of perfect unanimity and harmony, in a letter that went as follows. [a]