Section 493
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COUNCIL OF NICE. n and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Lybia, which is near Gyrene ; strangers also of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians. In that congregation, however, there was this cir cumstance of inferiority, that all who were collected together were not ministers of God, while the present assembly included more than two hundred and fifty bishops ; but such a multitude of presbyters, deacons and acolothists accompanied them, that it was difficult to determine their number., Among these holy ministers, some excelled by the wisdom and eloquence of their discourse, others by the gravity of their deportment and patience of labor ; and others, again, by their humility, and the gentleness of their manners. Some of them were honored on account of their grey hairs, while others were recommended by their youthful vigor and activity, both of body and mind. Several of them had but recently begun to exercise the functions of their ministry." This account of Eusebius may sufficiently refute the dispara ging language of Sabinus,* bishop of Heraclea in Thrace, who de rides the fathers of Nice as ordinary and ignorant men. It is very probable that in so large an assembly, collected from various quarters, such a character might be applicable to some individuals ; but there is no reason to doubt that there was a fair proportion of men of talents, learning and piety, in this convocation! Some were confessedly eminent for knowledge and abilities ; and seve ral of them, according to Theodoret, had exercised miraculous powers, which, though less common, it is likely, in the third and fourth centuries, than in the preceding ages of the Church, were yet to be found, in the opinion of some respectable writers, within its communion. Others were esteemed on account of their past sufferings in the cause of our holy religion, still bearing in their bodies, like the great apostle of the Gentiles, " the marks of the Lord Jesus." Before ^jfie opening of the council, some who were experienced in the practice of disputation, began to agitate questions of theo logy. A layman of good sense, who had the courage to confess * He was of the sect of Macedonius, who considered the Holy Ghost as a di vine energy, and not a distinct person.