usly told is related of an encounter of one of
these simple characters with the more philosophical combatants, which,
in whatever way it be taken, well illustrates the mixed character of the
council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates
describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere
pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the
controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless
eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith,
stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us
not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided
by faith and good works." "There has," says Bishop Kaye in recording the
story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which its members have not
required to be reminded of this lesson." On the present occasion the
bystanders, at least for the moment, were struck by its happy
application. The disputants, after hearing this plain word of truth,
took their differences more good-humoredly and the hubbub of controversy
subsided.

The tradition grew in later times into the form which it bears in all
the pictures of the council, and which is commemorated in the services
of the Greek Church. Aware of his incapacity of argument he took a brick
and said: "You deny that three can be one. Look at this: it is one, and
yet it is composed of the three elements of fire, earth, and water." As
he spoke the brick resolved itself into its component parts; the fire
flew upward, the clay remained in his hand, and the water fell to the
ground. The philosopher, or, according to some accounts, Arius himself
was so confounded as to declare himself converted on the spot.

These tales represent probably the feeling of a large portion of the
council--the sound, unprofessional, untheological, lay element which lay
at the basis of all their weakness and their strength. The historian
Socrates is very anxious to prove that the assembly was not entirely
composed of men of this kind, and he points triumphantly to the presence
of such men as Eusebius of Caesarea. No proof was necessary. The
subsequent history of the council itself is a sufficient indication
that, however small a minority might be the dialecticians and
theologians, yet they constitute the life and movement of the whole.
Socrates dwells with evident pleasure on the circumstance that the
ultimate decisions were only made