clergy to sign, probably preceded the "Tome" or confession of faith which he referred to as having been signed by some bishops, when he wrote to Alexander, bp. of Byzantium, the long and elaborate letter preserved by Theod. i. 4; in which, while using some language which in strictness must be called inaccurate, he gives an exposition of texts which became watchwords of the orthodox in the struggle (A.D. 323).
Another correspondent now appears on the scene. Eusebius of Nicomedia, who had a strong influence over the emperor Constantine, persuaded the latter to write, or to adopt and sign, a letter to Alexander and Arius, in which the controversy was treated as a logomachy (Eus. Vit. Con. ii. 64 seq.; Socr. i. 7). The imperial epistle was entrusted to a prelate of very high position, Hosius of Cordova, who can have had but little sympathy with the tone assumed by the Emperor. The council held at Alexandria on his arrival decided one point very unequivocally: the ordinations performed by Colluthus were pronounced absolutely null (Athan. Apol. 76). Peace was impossible on the basis of indifferentism, and Constantine summoned a general assembly of bishops to meet at Nicaea, in June 325. [D. C. A., art. Nicaea, Council of.] The Arians were condemned, and the Nicene Creed, in its original form, was drawn up.
The story told by Epiphanius, of severities used by Alexander towards the Meletians [ Meletius ], and of a consequent petition addressed by them to Constantine, appears to be one of several misstatements which he adopted from some Meletian sources. Athanasius tells us expressly that Alexander died within five months after the reception of the Meletians into church communion in the council of Nicaea (Apol. c. Ari. 59), and this, if strictly reckoned from the close of the council, would place his death in Jan. 326. It cannot be dated later than April 18 in that year. See further, Athanasius.
Athanasius mentions a circumstance of Alexander's local administration which furnished a precedent, on one occasion, for himself. Alexander was building the church of St. Theonas at Alexandria, on a larger scale than any of the existing churches, and used it, for convenience' sake, before it was completed (Ap. ad Const. 15). He is also said by tradition to have never read the Gospels in a sitting posture, and to have never eaten on fast days while the sun was in the sky (Bolland. Act. SS., Feb. 26). Two short fragments of a letter addressed by him to a bishop named Aeglon, against the Arians, are quoted in the works of Maximus the Confessor (in the Monothelite controversy), vol. ii. p. 152. A trans. of his extant writings is in the Ante-Nicene Lib. (T. & T. Clark).
Alexander, St., bp. of Byzantium, as the city was then called (Theod. Hist. i. 19) for about 23 years, his consecration being variously dated from A.D. 313 to 317. He was already 73 years old at the time (Socr. Hist. ii. 6; Soz. Hist. iii. 3). He is highly praised by Gregory of Nazianzum (Or. 27), and by Epiphanius (adv. Haer. lxix. 10). Theodoret calls him an "apostolic" bishop (Hist. i. 3, cf. Phil. 12). In the commencement of the Arian troubles the co-operation of Alexander was specially requested by his namesake of Alexandria (Theod. i. 4); and he was present at the council of Nicaea (Soz. ii. 29). When Constantine, induced by the Eusebians (Athan. Ep. ad Serap.; Rufinus, Hist. i.), and deceived by the equivocations of Arius (Socr. i. 37), commanded that Arius should be received to communion, Alexander, though threatened by the Eusebians with deposition and banishment, persisted in his refusal to admit the archheretic to communion, and shut himself up in the church of Irene for prayer in this extremity. Alexander did not long survive Arius (Socr. ii. 6; Theod. i. 19). On his death-bed he is said to have designated Paulus as his successor, and warned his clergy against the speciousness of Macedonius.
Alexander, bp. of Hierapolis Euphratensis and metropolitan in the patriarchate of Antioch; the uncompromising opponent of Cyril of Alexandria, and the resolute advocate of Nestorius in the controversies that followed the council of Ephesus, A.D. 431. His dignity as metropolitan gave him a leading place in the opposition of which the patriarch John of Antioch was the head, and his influence was confirmed by personal character. He may have commenced his episcopate as early as A.D. 404, when with uncompromising zeal he erased from the diptychs of one of his churches the name of Julian, a man famous for sanctity, but accused of Apollinarianism (Baluz. Nov. Coll. Conc. p. 867).
Alexander arrived at the council of Ephesus in company with his brother metropolitan Alexander of Apamea on or about June 20, 431. As soon as the Alexanders discovered Cyril's intention to open the council before John of Antioch's arrival they, on June 21, united with the other bishops of the East in signing a formal act demanding delay (Labbe, Concil. iii. 552, 660, 662; Baluz. 697, 699). The council heeded them not, opened their sittings the next day, June 22, and soon did the work for which they had been summoned, the condemnation of Nestorius. When John at last arrived, June 27, Alexander joined in the counter-council held by him and the prelates of his party in his inn, and signed the acts which cancelled the proceedings of the former council, deposing Cyril and Memnon, bp. of Ephesus, and declaring Cyril's anathemas heretical. As a necessary consequence Alexander was included in the sentence against John, and cut off from communion with Cyril's party (Labbe, iii. 764; Baluz. 507). Later he joined the council held by John at Tarsus, which pronounced a fresh sentence of deposition on Cyril (Baluz. 840, 843, 874); also that at Antioch in the middle of December, ratifying the former acts and declaring adherence to the Nicene faith. A meeting was held at Antioch early in 432, attended by Alexander, when six alternative articles were drawn up, one of which it was hoped Cyril would accept, and so afford a basis of reconciliation (ib. 764). One declared a resolution to be content with the Nicene Creed and to reject all the documents that had caused the controversy. Another council was summoned at Beroea. Four more articles were added to the six, and the whole were despatched to Cyril. Cyril was well content to express his adherence to the Nicene Creed, but felt it unreasonable that he should
