We must not forget that the Christian Church owes its present canonical _Gospels_, and hence its whole religious dogmatism, to the _Sortes Sanctorum_. Unable to agree as to which were the most divinely-inspired of the numerous gospels extant in its time, the mysterious Council of Nicea concluded to leave the decision of the puzzling question to miraculous intervention. This Nicean Council may well be called mysterious. There was a mystery, first, in the mystical number of its 318 bishops, on which Barnabas (viii. 11, 12, 13) lays such a stress; added to this, there is no agreement among ancient writers as to the time and place of its assembly, nor even as to the bishop who presided. Notwithstanding the grandiloquent eulogium of Constantine,[524] Sabinus, the Bishop of Heraclea, affirms that “except Constantine, the emperor, and Eusebius Pamphilus, these bishops were a set of _illiterate, simple_ creatures, that understood nothing;” which is equivalent to saying that they were a set of fools. Such was apparently the opinion entertained of them by Pappus, who tells us of the bit of magic resorted to to decide which were the _true_ gospels. In his _Synodicon_ to that Council Pappus says, having “promiscuously put all the books that were referred to the Council for determination under a communion-table in a church, they (the bishops) besought the Lord that the _inspired_ writings might get upon the table, while the spurious ones remained underneath, and _it happened accordingly_.” But we are not told who kept the keys of the council chamber over night!