Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol I:
The Life of Constantine with Orations of Constantine and Eusebius.: Chapter LXX

Chapter LXX.—An Exhortation to Unanimity.

“Let therefore both the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer receive your mutual forgiveness. 3220 For the cause of your difference has not been any of the leading doctrines or precepts of the Divine law, nor has any new heresy respecting the worship of God arisen among you. You are in truth of one and the same judgment: 3221 you may therefore well join in communion and fellowship.

Footnotes

Rendered “forbearance” above.

[The emperor seems at this time to have had a very imperfect knowledge of the errors of the Arian heresy. After the Council of Nice, at which he heard them fully explained, he wrote of them in terms of decisive condemnation in his letter to the Alexandrian church. Vide Socrates’ Eccles. Hist., Bk. 1, ch. 9.—Bag.] Neither at this time nor at any time does Constantine seem to have entered very fully into an appreciation of doctrinal niceties. Later he was more than tolerant of semi-Arianism. He seems to have depended a good deal on the “explanations” of others, and to have been led in a somewhat devious path in trying to follow all.