Section 495
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COUNCIL OF NICE. 13 against these things, or in attempting to discover the mode in which they may be, or not. But if you believe, only tell me so." The philosopher, not a little astonished at this unexpected address, answered, 1 believe ; and, thanking the old man for having van quished him, recommended it to those with whom he had for merly agreed in sentiment, to follow his example, solemnly declar ing, that the change which he had experienced was the effect of divine power, and that he felt himself inexplicably impelled to embrace the faith of Christ. The bishops had several conferences among themselves previ ously to the day when they were to proceed to the formal decision of affairs, and on which, Constantine desired to be present. Arius having been sent for on these occasions, declared his opinions as they are given in his letters ;* — that God has not always been a Father, and that there was a time when the Son was not ; that the Son is a creature like the others ; that he is mutable by his nature ; that by his free will he chose to remain virtuous, but that he might change like others. He said that Jesus Christ was not true God, but divine by participation, like all others to whom the name of God is attributed. He added, that he was not the sub stantial Word of the Father, and his proper wisdom, by which he had made all things, but that he was himself made by the eternal wisdom ; that he is foreign in every thing from the substance of the Father ; that we were not made for him, but he for us, when it was the pleasure of God, who was before alone, to create us ; that he was made by the will of God, as others are, having no previous existence at all, since he is not a proper and natural pro duction of the Father, but an effect of his grace. The father, he continued, is invisible to the Son, and the Son cannot know him perfectly ; nor, indeed, can he know his own substance. Some expressions of Arius are deemed too irreverent to be repeated, but the curious reader may find them in the works of Athanasius.t The bishops, assembled as they were from so many different and widely separated countries, stopped their ears on hearing such lan* One of them may be found among the Documents annexed, C, t Orat. I. contra Arianos, p. 294 and 295. 2