“Close beside Pope Alexander is a small, insignificant young man of hardly twenty-five, of lively manners and speech, and of bright, serene countenance. Though he is but the deacon or archdeacon of Alexandria (at this time), he has closely riveted the attention of the assembly by the vehemence of his arguments. That small, insignificant young man is the great Athanasius,” the chief opposer of Arius, and defender of the Nicene creed. “Next to these was an important presbyter of Alexandria, the parish priest of its principal church. In appearance he is the very opposite of Athanasius. He is sixty years of age, tall, thin, and apparently unable to support his stature. He would be handsome, but for the deadly pallor of his face and a downcast look caused by weakness of eyesight. At times his veins throb and swell, and his limbs tremble, as if suffering from some violent internal complaint. There is a wild look about him that is at times startling. His dress and demeanor are those of a rigid ascetic. He wears a long coat with short sleeves, and a scarf of half size, the mark of an austere life, and his hair hangs in a tangled mass over his head. He is usually silent, but at times breaks out into fierce excitement. Yet with all this there is a sweetness in his voice, and a winning, earnest, fascinating manner. This strange, captivating giant is the heretic Arius.” He is described as a man of peculiar loveliness and purity of character from his childhood, of great personal power and influence, and as exerting, at whatever cost of self-sacrifice, an uncompromising resistance to the popular worldly policy which he believed would degrade and enslave the church in its subordination to the temporal power. Two notable characters, Potammon and Paphnutius, came from the interior of Egypt. They had lived a great part of their lives in the desert. Both had lost the right eye, and suffered otherwise in the persecution. Bishop Paul, from near the Euphrates, had had his hands paralyzed by the searing of the muscles with a red-hot iron. There was Jacob of Nisibis, who had lived for years as a hermit, on the mountains, in forests and caves, browsing on roots and leaves, and clothed in a rough goat-hair cloak. This dress and manner of life he retained after he became a bishop.