Devotion and son of a consul, or a triumvir (61): but if a more splendid, and indeed specious, interpretation of the fourth eclogue contributed to the conversion of the first Christian emperor, Virgil may deserve to be ranked among the most successful missionaries of the gospel (62). The awful mysteries of the Christian faith and worship were conprivileges of Constantine. cealed from the eyes of strangers, and even of catechumens, with an affected secrecy, which served to excite their wonder and curiosity (63). But the severe rules of discipline which the prudence of the bishops had instituted, were relaxed by the same prudence in favour of an Imperial proselyte, whom it was so important to allure, by every gentle condescension, into the pale of the church; and Constantine was permitted, at least by a tacit dispensation, to enjoy most of the privileges, before he had contracted any of the obligations, of a Christian. Instead of retiring from the congregation, when the voice of the deacon dismissed the profane multitude, he prayed with the faithful, disputed with the bishops, preached on the most sublime and intricate subjects of theology, celebrated with sacred rites the vigil of Easter, and publicly declared himself, not only a partaker, but, in some measure, a priest and hierophant of the Christian mysteries (64). The pride of Constantine might assume, and his services had deserved, some extraordinary distinction: and ill-timed rigour might have blasted the unripened fruits of his conversion; and if the doors of the church had been strictly closed against a prince who had deserted the altars of the gods, the master of the empire would have been left destitute of any form of religious worship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by refusing to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline Hill (65). Many years before his baptism and death, Constantine had proclaimed to the world, that neither his person nor his image should ever more be seen within the walls of an idolatrous temple; while (61) The different claims of an elder and younger son of Pollio, of Julia, of Drusus, of Marcellus, are found to be incompatible with chronology, history, and the good sense of Virgil. (62) See Lowth de Sacra Poesi Hebræorum Prælect. xxi. p. 289-293. In the examination of the fourth eclogue, the respectable bishop of London has displayed learning, taste, ingenuity, and a temperate enthusiasm, which exalts his fancy without degrading his judgment. (63) The distinction between the public and the secret parts of divine service, the messa catechumenorum and the missa fidelium, and the mysterious veil which piety or policy had cast over the latter, are very judiciously explained by Thiers, Exposition du Saint Sacrement, I. i. c. 8-12, p. 59-91. but as, on this subject, the Papists may reasonably be suspected, a Protestant reader will depend with more confidence on the learned Bingham. Antiquities, 1. x. c. 5. (64) See Eusebius in Vit. Const. 1. iv. c. 15-32. and the whole tenor of Constantine's Sermon. The faith and devotion of the emperor has furnished Baronius with a specious argument in favour of his early baptism.** (65) Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 105. *Compare Heinichen, Excursus, iv. et v., and acuteness, and with constant reference to where these questions are examined with candour the opinions of more modern writers.-M. he distributed through the provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of Christian devotion (66) . of death, The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges of a cate- Delay of his chumen, cannot easily be explained or excused; but the delay of the approach baptism till his baptism may be justified by the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacrament of baptism (67) was regularly administered by the bishop himself, with his assistant clergy, in the cathedral church of the diocese, during the fifty days between the solemn festivals of Easter and Pentecost; and this holy term admitted a numerous band of infants and adult persons into the bosom of the church. The discretion of parents often suspended the baptism of their children till they could understand the obligations which they contracted: the severity of ancient bishops exacted from the new converts a noviciate of two or three years; and the catechumens themselves, from different motives of a temporal or a spiritual nature, were seldom impatient to assume the character of perfect and initiated Christians. The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity, there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite, which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism, they could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyments of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a sure and easy absolution (68). The sublime theory of the gospel had made a much fainter impression on the (66) Eusebius in Vit. Constant. 1. iv.c. 15, 16. (67) The theory and practice of antiquity, with regard to the sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 3-405; Dom Martenne, de Ritibus Ecclesiæ Antiquis, tom. i.; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of his Christian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which the modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom. The sacrament of baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was immediately followed by confirmation and the holy communion. (68) The fathers, who censured this criminal delay, could not deny the certain and victorious efficacy even of a death-bed baptism. The ingenious rhetoric of Chrysostom could find only three arguments against these prudent Christians. 1. That we should love and pursue virtue for her own sake, and not merely for the reward. 2. That we may be surprised by death without an opportunity of baptism. 3. That although we shall be placed in heaven, we shall only twinkle like little stars, when compared to the sons of righteousness who have run their appointed course with labour, with success, and with glory. Chrysostom in Epist. ad Hebraeos, Homil. xiii. apud Chardon, Hist. des Sacremens, tom. i. p. 49. I believe that this delay of baptism, though attended with the most pernicious consequences, was never condemned by any general or provincial council, or by any public act or declaration of the church. The zeal of the bishops was easily kindled on much slighter occasions. * * This passage of Chrysostom, though not in his more forcible manner, is not quite fairly represented. He is stronger in other places, in Act. Hom. xxiii.-and Hom. i. Compare like wise, the sermon of Gregory of Nyssa on this subject, and Gregory Nazianzen. After all, to heart than on the understanding of Constantine himself. He pursued the great object of his ambition through the dark and bloody paths of war and policy; and, after the victory, he abandoned himself, without moderation, to the abuse of his fortune. Instead of asserting his just superiority above the imperfect heroism and profane philosophy of Trajan and the Antonines, the mature age of Constantine forfeited the reputation which he had acquired in his youth. As he gradually advanced in the knowledge of truth, he proportionally declined in the practice of virtue; and the same year of his reign in which he convened the council of Nice, was polluted by the execution, or rather murder of his eldest son. This date is alone sufficient to refute the ignorant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus (69), who affirms, that, after the death of Crispus, the remorse of his father accepted from the ministers of Christianity the expiation which he had vainly solicited from the Pagan pontiffs. At the time of the death of Crispus, the emperor could no longer hesitate in the choice of a religion; he could no longer be ignorant that the church was possessed of an infallible remedy, though he chose to defer the application of it, till the approach of death had removed the temptation and danger of a relapse. The bishops, whom he summoned, in his last illness, to the palace of Nicomedia, were edified by the fervour with which he requested and received the sacrament of baptism, by the solemn protestation that the remainder of his life should be worthy of a disciple of Christ, and by his humble refusal to wear the Imperial purple after he had been clothed in the white garment of a Neophyte. The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism (70). Future tyrants were encouraged to believe, that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue. The gratitude of the church has exalted the virtues and excused Christianity. the failings of a generous patron, who seated Christianity on the throne of the Roman world; and the Greeks, who celebrate the festival of the Imperial saint, seldom mention the name of Con Propagation of (69) Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood he has deserved and experienced the harshest treatment from all the ecclesiastical writers, except cardinal Baronius (A. D. 324. No. 15-28.), who had occasion to employ the infidel on a particular service against the Arian Eusebius.* (70) Eusebius, 1. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The bishop of Cæsarea supposes the salvation of Constantine with the most perfect confidence. * Heyne, in a valuable note on this passage of Zosimus, has shown decisively that this malicious way of accounting for the conversion of Constantine was not an invention of Zosimus. It appears to have been the current calumny, eagerly adopted and propagated by the exasperated Pa gan party. Reitemeier, a later editor of Zosimus, whose notes are retained in the recent edition, in the collection of the Byzantine historians, has a disquisition on the passage, as candid, but not more conclusive than some which have preceded him. —M. stantine without adding the title of equal to the Apostles (71). Such a comparison, if it allude to the character of those divine missionaries, must be imputed to the extravagance of impious flattery. But if the parallel be confined to the extent and number of their evangelic victories, the success of Constantine might perhaps equal that of the Apostles themselves. By the edicts of toleration, he removed the temporal disadvantages which had hitherto retarded the progress of Christianity; and its active and numerous ministers received a free permission, a liberal encouragement, to recommend the salutary truths of revelation by every argument which could affect the reason or piety of mankind. The exact balance of the two religions continued but a moment; and the piercing eye of ambition and avarice soon discovered, that the profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present, as well as of a future life (72). The hopes of wealth and honours, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities which signalized a forward zeal, by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges, and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols (73). As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes (74). The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children, and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert (75). The powerful influence of Constantine was not circumscribed by the (71) See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves, have been desirous of placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints. (72) See the third and fourth books of his life. He was accustomed to say, that whether Christ was preached in pretence, or in truth, he should still rejoice (l. iii. c. 58.). (73) M. de Tillemont (Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 374. 616.) has defended, with strength and spirit, the virgin purity of Constantinople against some malevolent insinuations of the Pagan Zosimus. (74) The author of the Histoire Politique et Philosophique des deux Indes (tom. i. p. 9.) condemns a law of Constantine, which gave freedom to all the slaves who should embrace Christianity. The emperor did indeed publish a law, which restrained the Jews from circumcising, perhaps from keeping, any Christian slaves (see Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 27. and Cod. Theod. 1. xvi. tit. ix. with Godefroy's Commentary, tom. vi. p. 247.). But this imperfect exception related only to the Jews; and the great body of slaves, who were the property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their temporal condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what guides the Abbé Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history. (75) 'See Acta Sti Silvestri, and Hist. Eccles. Nicephor. Callist. 1. vii. c. 34. ap. Baronium Annal. Eccles. A. D. 324. No. 67. 74. Such evidence is contemptible enough; but these circumstances are im themselves so probable, that the learned Dr. Howell (History of the World, vol. iii. p. 14.) has not scrupled to adopt them. narrow limits of his life, or of his dominions. The education which he bestowed on his sons and nephews, secured to the empire a race of princes, whose faith was still more lively and sincere, as they imbibed, in their earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity. War and commerce had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the confines of the Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained an humble and proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which had been so lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most civilized nation, of the globe (76). The Goths and Germans, who enlisted under the standard of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the head of the legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same time the lessons of faith and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and Armenia* worshipped the God of their protector; and their subjects, who have invariably preserved the name of Christians, soon formed a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their religion to their country; but as long as peace subsisted between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine (77). The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia (78), opposed the progress of Christianity; but the labour of the missionaries was in some measure facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, † who, in the time of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those sequestered regions. Under the reign of his son Constan (76) The conversion of the Barbarians under the reign of Constantine is celebrated by the ecclesiastical historians (See Sozomen, 1. ii. c. 6. and Theodoret, l. i. c. 23, 24.). But Rufinus, the Latin translator of Eusebius, deserves to be considered as an original authority. His information was curiously collected from one of the companions of the Apostle of Ethiopia, and from Bacurius, an Iberian prince, who was count of the domestics. Father Mamachi has given an ample compilation on the progress of Christianity, in the first and second volumes of his great but imperfect work. (77) See in Eusebius (in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 9.) the pressing and pathetic epistle of Constantine in favour of his Christian brethren of Persia. (78) See Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, tom. vii. p. 182. tom. viii. p. 333. tom. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of this writer pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe. * According to the Georgian chronicles, Iberia (Georgia) was converted by the virgin Nino, who effected an extraordinary cure on the wife of the king, Mihran. The temple of the 'god Aramazt or Armaz, not far from the capital Mtskhitha, was destroyed, and the cross erected in its place. Le Beau, i. 292. with St. Martin's Notes. St. Martin has likewise clearly shown (St. Martin, Add. to Le Beau, i. 291.) that Armenia was the first nation which embraced Christianity (Addition to Le Beau, i. 76. and Mémoires sur l'Arménie, i. 305.). Gibbon himself suspected this truth." Instead of maintaining that the conversion of Armenia was not attempted with any degree of success, till the 'sceptre was in the. hands of an orthodox Emperor. I ought to have said, that the seeds of the faith were deeply sown during the season of the last and greatest perse-, cution, that many Roman exiles might assist the labours of Gregory, and that the renowned Tiridates, the hero of the East, may dispute with Constantine the honour of being the first sovereign who embraced the Christian religion." Vindication. Misc. Works, iv. 577. — M. Abha Salama, or Fremonatos, is mentioned in the Tareek Negushti, or Chronicle of the kings of Abyssinia. Salt's Travels, vol. ii, p. 464.— M. |