ghly esteemed by the emperor. Ipse etiam Osius ex
Hispanis nominis et famae celebritate insignis, qui Sylvestri
episcoli maximae Romae locum obtinebat, una cum Romanis presbyteris
Vitone et Vincentio adfuit; says Gelasius of Cyzicus. (Hist. Conc.
Nicen. l. 2, c. 5, t. 2. Conc, p. 155.) The same is affirmed by pope
Adrian, (t. 6, Conc. p. 1810.) In all the editions of this council,
Osius with the two priests. Vito and Vincent, is first named among
the subscribers. Socrates also names them first, and before the
patriarchs. Osius Episc. Cordubae, ita credo, ut sup. dictum est.
Vito et Vincentius presbyteri urbis Romae. Egypti Alexander Episc.
Antiochiae Eustathius, &c. (Socr. l. 1, c.13.) It is then false what
Blondel (de la primante de l'Eglise, p. 1195) pretends, that St.
Eustathius of Antioch presided. He is indeed called, by Facundus,
(l. 8, c. 1, & l. 11, c. 1.) the first of the council; and by
Nicephorus, (Chronol. p. 146,) the chief of the bishops, because he
was the first among the orientals; for St. Alexander of Egypt was
certainly before him in rank. Theodoret (l. 1, c. 6) says, he sat
the first on the right hand in the assembly. And it appears from
Eusebius, that the pope's legates and the patriarch of Alexandria
sat at the head on the left side. This might be the more honorable
on several accounts, as being on the right to those that came in. It
is certain that the pope's legate presided in the council of
Chalcedon where they, in the same manner, sat first on the left
above the patriarch of Alexandria, and the patriarch of Antioch was
placed on the right.
5. L. 3. de vit. Constant. c. 10.
6. L. 1, c. 7.
7. L. 1, c. 9.
8. [Greek: Homoiusios].
9. [Greek: Homousious].
10. The Arabic canons are falsely ascribed to the Nicene council, being
collected out of other ancient synods.

ST. PORPHYRIUS, BISHOP OF GAZA, CONFESSOR

From his life, written with great accuracy by his faithful disciple
Mark. See Fleury, t. 5. Tillemont, t. 10. Chatelain, p. 777. In the
king's library at Paris is a Greek MS. life Of St. Porphyrius, (abridged
from that of Mark,) which has never been translated.

A.D. 420.

PORPHYRIUS, a native of Thessalonica in Macedonia, was of a noble and
wealthy family. The desire of renouncing the world made him leave his
{474} friends and country at twenty-five years of age, in 378, to pass
into Eg