The Second Council at Nicaea

When Constantius received these letters, he wrote to the people of Antioch, denying that he had entrusted the see of Antioch to Eudoxius, as Eudoxius had publicly announced. He ordered Eudoxius to be banished and punished for the course he had taken at Nicaea in Bithynia, where he had ordered the synod to meet. It was Eudoxius himself who had persuaded the officials who held authority in the imperial household to fix on Nicaea for the council. But the Supreme Ruler and Governor, who knows the future as he knows the past, stopped the assembly by a mighty earthquake. The greater part of the city was thrown down, and most of its inhabitants were killed. When they learned of this, the bishops who had gathered were seized with panic and went back to their own churches. But I regard this as a contrivance of the divine wisdom. For in that city the holy fathers had defined the teaching of the faith of the apostles, and in that same city the bishops who were gathering on this later occasion meant to lay down the opposite. The sameness of the name would certainly have given the Arian crew a means of deceiving and tricking simple souls. They meant to call their council “the Nicene,” and to pass it off as the famous council of old. But he who cares for the churches broke up the synod. [a]