From the distant east came John the Persian, Aristaces, son of Gregory the illuminator, and founder of the Armenian church, and Eusebius the Great, of Nicomedia, were of the number. Also Eusebius, bishop of Cesarea, the interpreter, chaplain and confessor of Constantine, and the father of ecclesiastical history. One of the most interesting characters, of whom many remarkable stories are told, was Spyridion, from the island of Cyprus, a shepherd both before and after his elevation to the episcopate. Hosius, Bishop of Cordova in Spain, was one of the most powerful and revered men in the council. He had been a confessor during the persecutions of Maximin. The council was opened by the emperor in person. It continued about twenty days. A creed was first produced which all could sign—one which would doubtless _now_ be pronounced full and orthodox by Christians generally. The part relating to the Son reads as follows: “I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only begotten Son, the first born of every creature, begotten of the Father before all worlds, by whom also all things were made,” etc. But full as this was it did not touch the test point in controversy. That point turned upon two Greek words, signifying respectively, “_of the same substance_,” and “_of like substance_.” The Arians admitted that Christ in his divine nature was of _like substance_ with the Father, but denied that he was of the _same substance_. Athanasius and his party feared that this would lead, not to the denial of the divinity of Christ, but to the belief in two Gods instead of one. “Polytheism, Paganism, Hellenism was the enemy from which the church had just been delivered by Constantine, and this was the error under whose dominion it was feared the teaching of Arius might bring them back.” These scarred and maimed veterans of Christianity had suffered because of their steadfast testimony to the truth that _there is one God_; and here in the first great council of the entire church the creed was formulated which has stood through the centuries as a protest and guard against such distinction of persons in the Trinity as shall make a plurality of Gods. The Nicene creed as adopted had the additional clause inserted regarding the Son—_of the substance of the Father_.