Page:History of the First Council of Nice.djvu/41

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COUNCIL OF NICE.

31

CHAPTER II.

THE DATE, AND SOURCES OF ITS HISTORY.

This Council was convened at the city of Nicæa, in the Roman province Bithynia, a country of Asia, lying between the Propontis and Black Sea, in the six hundred and thirty-sixth year from the commencement of Alexander the Great's reign and A. D. 325, the twentieth year of the reign of Constantine the Great, and in the consulate of Paulinus and Julian of Rome. The transactions of the Council are related by the ancients in a partial, imperfect, and disjointed manner, as I will briefly show by quoting several of the varying statements of its precise date, although there is no discrepancy respecting the year. Socrates Scholasticus^[1] says, "It was convened on the twentieth day of May." But the Emperor had assigned the tenth day before the nones of June, that is, "the 25th May, as I glean from Baronius' Annals of the Church, tome iv, and Baronius says it terminated on the 25th August, A. D. 325. The date of the Formulary, or Confession of Faith, established by the Council, and

↑ Socrates, surnamed Scholasticus, or the Advocate, that is, the Lawyer, while practising law at Constantinople, compiled a History of the Church, from the accession of Constantine, A. D. 305, to the thirty-eighth year of Theodosius II., including a period of about 140 years. I quote from Bohn's edition, translated from the Greek. This author was born at Constantinople about A. D. 379, and received his education in that city. [See the notice of Hermias Sozomen, in another note.] He was a favorer of the Novatian Sect, which was Trinitarian, but slightly heretical, as he admits, although the heresy consisted in a matter of discipline; the Novatians (so called from Novatus, a Roman presbyter, who had separated himself from the church) contending that those who, in times of persecution, had lapsed from the faith, should not be allowed a place for restoration.—See Lardner's Cabinet Cyc., I., 133.

[1] Socrates, surnamed Scholasticus, or the Advocate, that is, the Lawyer, while practising law at Constantinople, compiled a History of the Church, from the accession of Constantine, A. D. 305, to the thirty-eighth year of Theodosius II., including a period of about 140 years. I quote from Bohn's edition, translated from the Greek. This author was born at Constantinople about A. D. 379, and received his education in that city. [See the notice of Hermias Sozomen, in another note.] He was a favorer of the Novatian Sect, which was Trinitarian, but slightly heretical, as he admits, although the heresy consisted in a matter of discipline; the Novatians (so called from Novatus, a Roman presbyter, who had separated himself from the church) contending that those who, in times of persecution, had lapsed from the faith, should not be allowed a place for restoration.—See Lardner's Cabinet Cyc., I., 133.

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