It was probably by degrees that these different arrivals took place, and the lapse of two or three weeks must be supposed for the preparatory arrangements before the council was formally opened. This interval was occupied by eager discussions on the questions likely to be debated. The first assemblage had been, as we have seen, within the walls of a public building. But the other preliminary meetings were held, as was natural, in the streets or colonnades in the open air. The novelty of the occasion had collected many strangers to the spot. Laymen, philosophers, heathen as well as Christians, might be seen joining in the arguments on either side, orthodox as well as heretical. There were also discussions among the orthodox themselves as to the principle on which the debates should be conducted. The enumeration of the characters just given shows that there were two very different elements in the assembly, such indeed as will always constitute the main difficulty in making any general statements of theology which shall be satisfactory at once to the few and to the many. A large number, perhaps the majority, consisted of rough, simple, almost illiterate men, like Spyridion the shepherd, Potammon the hermit, Acesius the puritan, who held their faith earnestly and sincerely, but without conscious knowledge of the grounds on which they maintained it, incapable of arguing themselves, or of entering into the arguments of their opponents. These men, when suddenly brought into collision with the acutest and most learned disputants of the age, naturally took up the position that the safest course was to hold by what had been handed down, without any further inquiry or explanation. A story somewhat variously told is related of an encounter of one of these simple characters with the more philosophical combatants, which, in whatever way it be taken, well illustrates the mixed character of the council, and the choice of the courses open before it. As Socrates describes the incident, the disputes were running so high, from the mere pleasure of argument, that there seemed likely to be no end to the controversy, when suddenly a simple-minded layman, who by his sightless eye or limping leg bore witness of his zeal for the Christian faith, stepped among them and abruptly said, "Christ and the apostles left us not a system of logic nor a vain deceit, but a naked truth to be guided by faith and good works." "There has," says Bishop Kaye in recording the story, "been hardly any age of the Church in which its members have not required to be reminded of this lesson." On the present occasion the bystanders, at least for the moment, were struck by its happy application. The disputants, after hearing this plain word of truth, took their differences more good-humoredly and the hubbub of controversy subsided.