No one was more disturbed by these theological controversies than the Emperor himself.  He was a soldier, and not a metaphysician; and, as Emperor, he was Pontifex Maximus,—­head of the Church.  He hated these contentions between good and learned men.  He felt that they compromised the interests of the Church universal, of which he was the protector.  Therefore he despatched Hosius, Bishop of Cordova, in Spain,—­in whom he had great confidence, who was in fact his ecclesiastical adviser,—­to both Alexander and Arius, to bring about a reconciliation.  As well reconcile Luther with Dr. Eck, or Pascal with the Jesuits!  The divisions widened.  The party animosities increased.  The Church was rent in twain.  Metaphysical divinity destroyed Christian union and charity.  So Constantine summoned the first general council in Church history to settle the disputed points, and restore harmony and unity.  It convened at Nicaea, or Nice, in Asia Minor, not far from Constantinople.

Arius, as the author of all the troubles, was of course present at the council.  As a presbyter he could speak, but not vote.  He was sixty years of age, and in the height of his power and fame, and he was able in debate.

But there was one man in the assembly on whom all eyes were soon riveted as the greatest theologian and logician that had arisen in the Church since the apostolic age.  He was archdeacon to the bishop of Alexandria, —­a lean, attenuated man, small in stature, with fiery eye, haughty air, and impetuous eloquence.  His name was Athanasius,—­neither Greek nor Roman, but a Coptic African.  He was bitterly opposed to Arius and his doctrines.  No one could withstand his fervor and his logic.  He was like Bernard at the council of Soissons.  He was not a cold, dry, unimpassioned impersonation of mere intellect, like Thomas Aquinas or Calvin, but more like St. Augustine,—­another African, warm, religious, profound, with human passions, but lofty soul.  He also had that intellectual pride and dogmatism which afterward marked Bossuet.  For two months he appealed to the assembly, and presented the consequences of the new heresy.  With his slight figure, his commanding intellectual force, his conservative tendencies, his clearness of statement, his logical exactness and fascinating persuasiveness, he was to churchmen what Alexander Hamilton was to statesmen.  He gave a constitution to the Church, and became a theological authority scarcely less than Augustine in the next generation, or Lainez at the Council of Trent.

And the result of the deliberations of that famous council led by Athanasius,—­although both Hosius and Eusebius of Caesarea had more prelatic authority and dignity than he,—­was the Nicene Creed.  Who can estimate the influence of those formulated doctrines?  They have been accepted for fifteen hundred years as the standard of the orthodox faith, in both Catholic and Protestant churches,—­not universally accepted, for Arianism still has its advocates,