2or Orders that all persons shall offer up their prayers on Sundays and Pentecost standing.
It w^is also proposed to add another canon, enjoining continence upon the married clergy: but Paphinitins warmly opposed the imposition of such a yoke, and pre- vailed, so that the proposal fell to the ground. The creed and the canons were written in a book, and signed by the bishops. The council issued a letter to the Egyptian and Libyan bishops as to the decision of the three main points ; the emperor also sent several edicts to the churches, in which he ascribed the decrees to di- vine inspiration, and set them forth as laws of the realm. On July 'JO, the twentieth anniversary of his accession, the emperor gave the members of the council a splendid banipiet in his jialace, which Ensebius (quite too sus- ceptible to worldly splendor) describes as a figure of the reign of Christ on earth; Constantine remunerated the bishops lavishly, and dismissed them with a suitable valedictory, and with letters of commendation to the authorities of all the provinces on their homeward way. Thus ended the Council of Niciea. It is styled emphati- cally " the great and holy council," holds the highest
place among all the councils, especially with the Greeks, and still lives in the Nicene Creed, which is second in authority only to the ever venerable Apostles' Creed. Athanasius calls it "a true monument and token of vic- tory against every heresy ;" Leo the Great, like Con- stantine, attributes its decrees to the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, and ascribes even to its canons perpetual validity; the Greek Church amntally observes (on the Sunday before Pentecost) a special /east in memory of it. There afterwards arose a multitude of apocry])hal orations and legends in gloritication of it, of whicli (Je- lasius of Cyzicus in the 5th century collected a whole volume. The decision of this council had not the effect of restoring tranquillity to the Eastern Church, for the Arian controversy was still warmly carried on, but it has supplied that mode of stating the doctrine of the Trinity (as far as relates to the Father and the Son) in which it has ever since been received by the orthodox. Says Dr. Schaff, "The Council ofNici^a is the most im- portant event of the ith centurj', and its bloodless intel- lectual victory over a dangerous error is of far greater consequence to the progress of true civilization than all the bloody victories of Constantine and his successors. It forn/s An epoch in the history of doctrine, summing up the lest'lts of all previous discussions on the deity of Christ ar.d the incamation, and at the same time regulating the further development of catholic ortho- doxy for centuries." Dr. Shedd is incorrect in saying (^Ilist. ofCh. Doctrine, i, 308), "The problem to be solved by the Nicene conncil was to exhibit the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness ; to bring into the creed state- ment the total data of Scripture upon both the side of unity and trinity.' This was not done till the Council of Constantinople in 381, and strictly not till the still later Sj-mbolum Athanasianum (comp. Schaff, Ch. Hist, iii, 029). For a minute and picturesque description of this council, see dean Stanley's Lecttn-es on the History of the Eastern Ch. p. 105 ; Schaff objects to it as too graphically minute at the expense of the dignitj' of his- torical statement. For more trustworthy information, see Ittigus, Hist. Concilii Xiccrui (Lips. 1712) ; Eicherus, Hist. Concil. General, i, 10; Walch, Enticurf einer Con- cilienr/esch. p. 157; Hefele, Conciliengesch. i, 249 scp ; Boyle, Hist. Vieto of the Council of Nice (N. Y. 1856) ; Kaye, Council of Niece a (Lond. 1852, 8vo); Tillemont, Hist. Eccles. ; Schaff, Ch. Hist, iii, 22 sq. ; Neandcr, Ch. Hist, ii, 372 sq. ; Landon, Man. of Councils, s. v. For the sources, see (1) the twenty Canones, the doctrinal Sym- bol, and a Decree of the Council of Nicjea, and several Letters of bishop Alexander of Alexandria and the em- peror Constantine (all collected in Greek and Latin in INIansi, Collect, sacrorum Conciliorum, ii, 635-704). Of- ficial minutes of the transactions themselves were not at that time made ; only the decrees as adopted v>ere set down in writing and subscribed by all (compi Euseb. Vita Const, iii, 14). All later accounts of voluminous acts of the council are sheer fabrications (comp. Hefele. i, 249 sq.). (2) Accounts of eye-witnesses, especially Ense- bius, ]'ita Const, iii, 4-24 (superficial, rather Arianizing, and a panegyric of the emperor Constantine). The Church History of Ensebius, which should have closed with the Council of Nice, comes down only to the year 324. Athanasius, De decretis Synodi Nic. ; Orationes ir contra A rianos ; Epist. ad Afros, and other histori- cal and anti-Arian tracts in tom. i and ii of his Opera (ed. Bened.), and the more important of them also in the first vol. of Thilo's Bihliotheca I'atrum Grcec. doipnat. (Lips. 1853 ; Engl, transl. in the Oxford Library of the Fathers.) (3) The later accounts of Epiphanius, Hnr, 69 ; Socrates, //. E. i, 8 sq. ; Sozomcn, //. E. i, 17 sq. ; Theodoret, //. E. i, 1-13; Rufinus, //. E. i, 1-6 (or lib. X, if his transl. of Ensebius be counted in). Gelasius Cyzicenus (about 476), Commenturius acforum Concilii Nicceni (Greek and Latin in Mansi, ii, 769 sq. ; it pro- fesses to be founded on an old MS., but is filled with imaginary speeches). Comp. also the four Coptic frag- ments in I'itra, Sjncilegium Soksmense (Par. 1852), i. 509