5. Of the Acts of Councils, I shall let that one be my chief guide which three hundred and eighteen priests, appointed, as it were, after the judgment of Abraham, See the note 2 on § 3. St. Ambrose is here speaking of the Œcumenical Council held at Nicæa in Bithynia, a.d. 325. Different accounts are given of the numbers present. Eusebius says there were 250 bishops in the Council; Athanasius and Socrates, “more than 300;” Sozomen “about 320.” The number 318, however, is also given by Athanasius as well as by Theodoret and Epiphanius. See Robertson’s History of the Church, Bk. II. ch. i. The victory over the infidel is, of course, the victory of the orthodox Catholics over Arius, and the Nicene Symbol may be regarded as the “trophy” commemorating the victory, the reality of which lay in getting the clause “of one substance with the Father” (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί) subscribed to. The original Nicene Creed, it may be useful to observe, was not exactly the same in form as the symbol which now is generally known by that name, and which is part of the Eucharistic office of the English Church. This latter is an enlargement of the original, and it appears to have been in use for a considerable time (not less than seventy years) before it was produced at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. It obtained general acceptance by the middle of the sixth century. Towards the end of that century (589 a.d.) an additional clause, proclaiming the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as well as the Father, was inserted at the Council of Toledo. This insertion was repudiated by the Church in the East, and became one of the causes of the separation of Eastern from Western Christendom. made (so to speak) a trophy raised to proclaim their victory over the infidel throughout the world, prevailing by that courage of the Faith, wherein all agreed. Verily, as it seems to me, one may herein see the hand of God, forasmuch as the same number is our authority in the Councils of the Faith, and an example of loyalty in the records of old.