re, being found obstinate and incorrigible, he was
excommunicated, together with his adherents. This sentence of
excommunication the saint confirmed soon after, about the end of the
year 320, in a council at Alexandria, at the head of near one hundred
bishops, at which Arius was also present, who, repeating his former
blasphemies, and adding still more horrible ones was unanimously
condemned by the synod, which loaded him and all his followers with
anathemas. Arius lay hid for some time after this in Alexandria, but
being discovered, went into Palestine, and found means to gain over to
his party Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, also Theognis of Nice, and
Eusebius of Nicomedia, which last was, of all others, his most declared
protector, and had great authority with the emperor Constantine, who
resided even at Nicomedia, or rather with his sister Constantia. Yet it
is clear, from Constantine himself, that he was a wicked, proud,
ambitious, intriguing man. {472} It is no wonder, after his other
crimes, that he became an heresiarch, and that he should have an
ascendant over many weak, but well-meaning men, on account of his high
credit and reputation at court. After several letters that had passed
between these two serpents, Arius retired to him at Nicomedia, and there
composed his Thalia, a poem stuffed with his own praises, and his
impious heresies.

Alexander wrote to the pope, St. Sylvester, and, in a circular letter,
to the other bishops of the church, giving them an account of Arius's
heresy and condemnation. Arius, Eusebius, and many others, wrote to our
saint, begging that he would take off his censures. The emperor
Constantine also exhorted him by letter to a reconciliation with Arius,
and sent it by the great Osius to Alexandria, with express orders to
procure information of the state of the affair. The deputy returned to
the emperor better informed of the heresiarch's impiety and malice, and
the zeal, virtue, and prudence of St. Alexander: and having given him a
just and faithful account of the matter, convinced him of the necessity
of a general council, as the only remedy adequate to the growing evil,
and capable of restoring peace to the church. St. Alexander had already
sent him the same advice in several letters.[3] That prince,
accordingly, by letters of respect, invited the bishops to Nice, in
Bithynia, and defrayed their expenses. They assembled in the imperial
palace of Nice, on the 19th of June, in 325, bei