After Helena, the mother of the religious prince, having been honored with the highest honors of the Roman realm, departed from this light, Constantia, then the widow of Licinius, enjoyed the consolations of her brother the Augustus. It happened that a certain presbyter came to her acquaintance, secretly favoring the party of Arius. But at first he disclosed nothing at all of these matters to the prince's sister; but when much familiarity gave him opportunity, he began little by little to sprinkle in his talk, saying that envy had been engendered against Arius, and that his bishop, for private grudges, had contentiously stirred up the affair, pierced by the goad of jealousy, because Arius was held quite dear among the people. By suggesting these and other such things rather frequently, he made the mind of Constantia his own.
And when, about to die, she was visited by her brother and was kindly and devoutly addressed by him, she is said to have asked of him a last favor: that he would receive the presbyter into his familiarity and hear what things might be suggested to him by that man for his hope and salvation; saying that she indeed, now departing from this light, cared for nothing, but that she was anxious for her brother's state, lest perchance for the punishment of the innocent he might suffer the ruin of his kingdom. Receiving these admonitions from his sister, and believing his sister's anxiety on his behalf to be faithful, he lent his ear to the presbyter; and meanwhile he ordered Arius to be summoned from exile, that he might set forth how he felt concerning the faith.
Then Arius drew up a confession of faith, which seemed to contain not indeed our meaning, yet our words and profession. The emperor indeed marveled, and thought that one and the same opinion was contained in the exposition both of Arius and of the Council held earlier; yet in no point did he relax the vigor of his mind, but again sent him back to the examination of the council;
since indeed priests were being invited from the whole world to come together for the dedication of Jerusalem, writing to them about his case, that if they should approve the exposition of his faith, and recognize that he had then been ensnared either through envy, as he asserted, or had now been corrected from his error, they should use a merciful judgment toward him (since the moderation of the Council had been so great that the sentence had been pronounced not against his person but against the perversity of the doctrines)—if, however, the assent of his bishop Alexander were also accommodated. And indeed by those who, favoring his undertakings from the first, had subscribed with dissimulation, he was easily received. But when he had gone on to Alexandria, there his whole undertaking was frustrated;
since indeed there is room for deceits among the ignorant, but to aim a deceit at those who know is nothing other than to provoke laughter. Meanwhile, while these things were being vainly stirred up at Alexandria, the venerable Augustus Constantine, in a suburban villa at Nicomedia, in the thirty-first year of his reign, ended his days, having appointed his children by testament heirs to the succession of the Roman world. At which time, since indeed Constantius, for whom he had decreed the rule of the East, was not present, he is said to have secretly summoned the presbyter whom, as we said above, his sister had commended and who from then was held in familiarity, and to have handed over to him the testament which he had written, and to have adjured him under oath that he should deliver it into the hands of no one except Constantius when he came.
And because the eunuchs who were in the palace favored him as well, with the news of the emperor's death cleverly suppressed until the presence of Constantius, many who attempted new things being put down, affairs remained safe and unimpaired. But when Constantius had arrived, the presbyter restored the deposit. For the favor of this service the emperor, eager for rule, was so bound to him that he who had aspired to command all, allowed himself with equanimity to be commanded by that man. From this, the emperor being thus bound to him, he began to suggest the restoration of Arius, and to persuade him to compel the priests who were unwilling to acquiesce.