When the council met one morning, Athanasius produced and laughingly read a song, or hymn, which had been written and set to music by the Libyan, for the use of uneducated Christians at Alexandria, in order to enable them to memorize and keep in mind the doctrines of Christianity as he had understood them. This song was part of a little book entitled "Thalia," or "Songs of Joy," which the presbyter had written for sailors and others who had no certain means of attending regular religious services, and in it occurred the following expressions: "God was not always Father; once he was not Father; afterward he became Father; and his only-begotten is Jesus Christ our Lord." And thereupon Marcellus, Bishop of Ancyra, moved the council to declare that this sentiment was heretical; and that the man who wrote it should be expelled from the Church of Christ; and Arius and his friends perceived that the struggle for the destruction of the presbyter had begun. For a while the council-hall was filled with clamorous and bitter denunciations of Arius: "The heretic!" "The atheist!" "The defamer of Christ!" "The polytheist!" "The pagan!" "The Libyan serpent!" "The ram of Baucalis!" and almost every other term of reproach which the vocabulary of ecclesiasticism could furnish, were shouted throughout the hall by the partisans of Constantine. Finally, the clamor seemed to wear itself out, and, order having been partially restored, Potammon of Hierapolis, a confessor whom the pagans had left blind and lame, straightened up himself and with great awkwardness and earnestness cried out: "Brethren, I was reared up in Central Africa, and know nothing of philosophy, but do try to serve the Lord, and to avoid all heresy and false doctrine. I have often sung this song, not knowing it was heresy, with my people! What is there wrong about the song, then? Do any of you deny that Jesus Christ is the only-begotten Son of God? or that he is our Lord and Saviour? or will some of you now pretend to believe that the Son is older than the Father? What is wrong about the song?" To the same effect spoke many of the friends of Arius; and Maris of Chalcedon said: "The Gospels uniformly call Jesus Christ the only-begotten Son of the Father, and I have never believed it necessary or proper to go any further than the simple, direct scriptural statement."