Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/421

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 403 sebius lias ascribed the faith of Constantine to tlie mi- CHAP. XX raculous sign which was displayed in the heavens whilst he meditated and prepared the Italian expedition*^. A. D. 312. The historian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the emperor had imbrued his hands in the blood of his eldest son, before he publicly renounced the gods of Rome and of his ancestors'*. The perplexity produced A.D. 326. by these discordant authorities, is derived from the behaviour of Constantine himself. According to the strictness of ecclesiastical language, the first of the christian emperors was unworthy of that name till the moment of his death ; since it was only during his last A. D. 337. illness that he received, as a catechumen, the impo- sition of hands*, and was afterwards admitted, by the initiatory rites of baptism, into the number of the faith- ful ^ The Christianity of Constantine must be allowed in a much more vague and qualified sense; and the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the slow and almost impei'ceptible gradations by which the monarch declared himself the protector, and at length the pro- selyte, of the church. It was an arduous task to eradi- cate the habits and prejudices of his education, to acknowledge the divine power of Christ, and to under- be alleged in its favour ; but the passage is omitted in the correct manu- script of Bologna, which the P. de Montfaucon ascribes to the sixth or seventh century. Diarium Italic, p. 409. The taste of most of the editors (except Isaeus, see Lactant. edit. Dufresnoy, torn. i. p. 596.) has felt tiie genuine style of Lactantius, <= Euseb. in Vit. Constant. 1. i. c. 27—32. « That rite was always used in making a catechumen; (see Bingham's Antiquities, 1. x. c. 1. p. 419 ; Dom. Chardon, Hist, des Sacremens, torn, i. p. 62.) and Constantine received it for the first time (Euseb. in Vit. Con- stant. 1. iv. c. 61.) immediately before his baptism and death. From the connection of these two facts, Valesius (ad loc. Euseb.) has drawn the con- clusion which is reluctantly admitted by Tillemont, (Hist, des Empereurs, torn. iv. p. 628.) and opposed with feeble arguments by .Mosheim, p. 968. f Euseb in Vit. Constant. 1. iv. c. 61, 62, 63. The legend of Constan- tine's baptism at Rome, thirteen years before his death, was invented in tiie eighth century, as a proper motive for his donation. Such has been the gradual progress of knowledge, that a story, of which carditiai Baronius (Annal. Ecclesiast. A.D. 324, No. 43 — 49.) declared himself the unblush- ing advocate, is now feebly supported, even within the verge of the Vatican. See the Antiquitates Christianas, tom. ii. p. 232 ; a work published with six approbations at Rome, in the year 17oi, by father Mamachi, a learned Dominican. Dd 2
 * • Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104.