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 II.—When the Empire became professedly Christian a powerful new influence was brought to bear on the development of Christian morality. The Church, in modern phrase, now became established by the State, and at once displayed the conservative temper which marks all established institutions. The law and system of the Empire received a measure of consecration when Constantine added the cross to the Roman standards and reigned as a Christian sovereign.

There was both gain and loss in the change. It bred a new spirit of demoralising complaisance in Christian minds, and opened an epoch of clerical corruption, but it also brought the influence of the Gospel to bear over a far larger area of human life, and affected for good the laws and their administration. The institutions of the Christian emperors, says Gibbon, "appear to fluctuate between the custom of the Empire and the wishes of the Church." Yet in fundamental principles the Empire and the Church were antagonistic. "