es. The Emperor, in purple and gold, took a seat in the
council as the prince, but only as a layman and not yet baptized; and
the person who used the most powerful arguments was a young deacon of
Alexandria named Athanasius. Almost every Bishop declared that the
doctrine of Arius was contrary to what the Church had held from the
first, and the confession of faith was drawn up which we call the Nicene
Creed. Three hundred Bishops at once set their seals to it, and of those
who at first refused all but two were won over, and these were banished.
It was then that the faith of the Church began to be called Catholic or
universal, and orthodox or straight teaching; while those who attacked
it were called heretics, and their doctrine heresy, from a Greek word
meaning to choose.

[Illustration: COUNCIL OF NICEA.]

The troubles were not at an end with the Council and Creed of Nicea.
Arius had pretended to submit, but he went on with his false teaching,
and the courtly Bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had the ear of the
Emperor, protected him. Athanasius had been made Patriarch, or
Father-Bishop, of Alexandria, and with all his might argued against the
false doctrine, and cut off those who followed it from the Church. But
Eusebius so talked that Constantine fancied quiet was better than truth,
and sent orders to Athanasius that no one was to be shut out. This the
Patriarch could not obey, and the Emperor therefore banished him to
Gaul. Arius then went to Constantinople to ask the Emperor to insist on
his being received back to communion. He declared that he believed that
which he held in his hand, showing the Creed of Nicea, but keeping
hidden under it a statement of his own heresy.

[Illustration: CATACOMBS.]

"Go," said Constantine; "if your faith agree with your oath, you are
blameless; if not, God be your judge;" and he commanded that Arius
should be received to communion the next day, which was Sunday. But on
his way to church, among a great number of his friends, Arius was struck
with sudden illness, and died in a few minutes. The Emperor, as well as
the Catholics, took this as a clear token of the hand of God, and
Constantine was cured of any leaning to the Arians, though he still
believed the men who called Athanasius factious and troublesome, and
therefore would not recall him from exile.

The great grief of Constantine's life was, that he put his eldest son
Crispus to death on a wicked accusation of his stepmother