A.D. 381 heretics, pagans, and the dawn of the monotheistic state ( PDFDrive )

Alexander counterattacked by getting signatures of support from some two
hundred bishops, many of them from his own diocese of Egypt. It was in this
atmosphere of escalating tension that Constantine sent his closest adviser, the
Spanish Ossius, Bishop of Cordova, to carry out an investigation of the unrest.
Ossius’ own sympathies were clearly with Alexander (and the episcopal
authority of this ancient see), but he realised that the only way to solve the issue
was to call a larger council under the auspices of the emperor himself.
So a debate that might well have been smoothed over by a compromise now
drew in bishops from across the eastern Mediterranean. Attention turned to the
coming council. Never had there been such a chance for so many bishops to
meet together to decide on an issue. Constantine chose his palace at Nicaea as
the venue, and some 250 bishops, most of them from the east, began assembling
there for the first session. It was an extraordinary moment. Many of the bishops
still carried the marks of the persecution the imperial officials had inflicted on
their bodies—now they were meeting face to face with the emperor himself.
Constantine flaunted his own status by wearing a purple robe studded with gold
and diamonds. Eusebius of Caesarea describes how the bishops reacted to the
dazzling sight with the incredulity of children. 17
Constantine had already met Eusebius of Caesarea, his biographer-to-be, and
had been impressed by him. Even though Eusebius had recently been
condemned as heretical by a council of ‘Alexandrian’ bishops meeting in
Antioch, the emperor was not going to deprive him of the privilege of making a
speech. The bishop put forward a formula that might be acceptable to both sides.
Jesus Christ was ‘the Word of God, God from God, light from light, Son only
begotten, first-begotten of all creation, begotten before all ages from the Father
...’ This was a sensible compromise because it accepted the full divinity of
Christ, which Arius’ supporters were prepared to do, but it said nothing that
implied Jesus was subordinate to the Father. Its success was probably the cause
of its own weakness. Alexander and his supporters realised that Arius (who was
actually in attendance, although, not being a bishop, he was unable to speak)
could endorse the statement and return to Alexandria to go on preaching as he
always had done. It seems to have been Ossius, probably with Constantine’s
support, who suggested that there needed to be something added to the
statement. The word suggested was homoousios, ‘of the same substance’ - Jesus
was to be proclaimed ‘of the same substance’ as the Father, a formulation that
would place him unequivocally on Alexander’s side of the argument. The
bishops must have been taken aback. Homoousios was a term taken from Greek