One of the intentions of Constantine in his support of Christianity seems to have been the employment of the Christian religion as a basis for imperial unity. The policy of several earlier emperors in reviving heathenism, and Galerius in his persecution of the Christians, seems likewise to have been to use religion as a basis of unity. One of the first tasks Constantine encountered after he became sole ruler of the West was to restore the unity of the Church in Africa, which had been endangered by the disputes culminating in the Donatist schism; and when he became sole ruler of the Empire a new task of a similar character was to restore unity to the Church of the East, endangered by the Meletian schism in Egypt [_v. supra_, § 57, _a_], the Arian controversy in its first stage [_v. infra_, § 63], and the estrangement of the Asia Minor churches, due to the Easter controversy [_v. supra_, § 38]. It was a master-stroke of policy on the part of Constantine to use the Church’s conciliar system on an enlarged scale to bring about this unity. The Church was made to feel that the decision was its own and to be obeyed for religious reasons; at the same time the Emperor was able to direct the thought and action of the assembly in matters of consequence and to give to conciliar action legal and coercive effect. The two great assemblies summoned to meet the problems of the West and of the East were respectively the Councils of Arles, A. D. 314, and of Nicæa, A. D. 325. I. The Council of Arles A. D. 314 (_a_) Constantine, _Convocatio concilii Arelatensis_, in Eusebius, _Hist. Ec._, X, 5. (MSG, 20 :888.) _Cf._ Kirch, nn. 321 _f._; Mirbt, nn. 89, 93-97. For the Council of Arles, see Hefele, §§ 14, 15.