Did lopsided conciliar majorities record settled belief or fear of exile? Nicaea was near-unanimous and its holdouts were banished — but the fifty years following were dominated by Arian ascendancy and Athanasius was exiled five times. A vote that one-sided which then failed to hold for two generations is evidence against reading conciliar unanimity as coercive closure. What eventually settled Nicaea was not the count. It was the reception.