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Now at that time the bishops met in Italy, very few indeed from the
East, most of them being hindered from coming either by the firmities
of age or by the distance; but of the West there were more than three
hundred. It was a command of the emperor that they should be assembled
at Milan. On meeting, the Eastern prelates opened the Synod by
calling upon those convened to pass a unanimous sentence of condemnation
against Athanasius; with this object in view, that he might
thenceforward be utterly shut out from Alexandria. But Paulinus,
bishop of Treves in Gaul, and Dionysius, of whom the former was
bishop of Alba, the metropolis of Italy, and Eusebius of
Vercellae, a city of Liguria in Italy, perceiving that the Eastern
bishops, by demanding a ratification of the sentence against
Athanasius, were intent on subverting the faith, arose and loudly
exclaimed that 'this proposition indicated a covert plot against the
principles of Christian truth. For they insisted that the charges
against Athanasius were unfounded, and merely invented by his accusers
as a means of corrupting the faith.'
Having made this protest with much vehemence of manner, the congress
of bishops was then dissolved.
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