Some of the sessions of the Council were marked by uproar and violence. Athanasius declares that when the bishops heard extracts read from the _Thalia_ of Arius, they raised the cry of “impious,” and closed their eyes and shut their ears tight against the admission of such appalling blasphemy. There is a legend, indeed, that St. Nicholas, Bishop of Myra, was so carried away by his indignation that he smote Arius a terrific blow upon the jaw for daring to give utterance to words so vile. Theodoretus declares that the Arians drew up the draft of a creed which they were willing to subscribe and had it read before the Council. But it was at once denounced as a “bastard and vile-begotten document” and torn to pieces. Then a praiseworthy attempt was made to begin at the beginning. The proposition was put forward that the Son was from God. “Agreed,” said the Trinitarians; “Agreed,” said the Arians, on the authority of such texts as “There is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things,” and “All things are become new and all things are of God.” “But will you agree,” asked the Trinitarians, “that the Son is the true Power and Image of the Father, like to Him in all things, His eternal Image, undivided from Him and unalterable?” “Yes,” said the Arians after some discussion among themselves, and they quoted the texts: “Man is the glory and image of God,” “For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake,” and “In him we live and move and have our being.” “But will you admit,” continued the Trinitarians, “that the Son is Very God?” “Yes,” replied the Arians, “for he is Very God if he has been made so.” Athanasius tells us that while these strange questions and answers were being tossed from one side of the Council to the other, he saw the Arians “whispering and making signals one to the other with their eyes.” It is to be regretted that we have no independent account. The savage abuse with which Athanasius attacks the Arians in his “Letter to the African Bishops” makes his version of what took place at the Council exceedingly suspect. He speaks of their “wiliness,” and delivers himself of the sarcasm that as they were cradled in ordure their arguments also partook of a similar character.[97] Most of the vilification in the opening stages of the Arian controversy—at any rate most of that which has survived—seems to have been on the Trinitarian side. ----- Footnote 97: αὐτὸι μὲν ὥς ἐκ κοπρίας ὄντες ἐλαλησαν ἀληθῶς ἀπο γῆς. -----