Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/442

 424 THE DECLINE AND FALL C H A P. lege of defending the cause of truth by the arms of " deceit and falsehood. Personal interest is often the standard of our belief, as well as of our practice ; and the same motives of temporal advantage which might influence the public conduct and professions of Con- stantine, would insensibly dispose his mind to embrace a religion so propitious to his fame and fortunes. His vanity was gratified by the flattering assurance, that he had been chosen by heaven to reign over the earth ; success had justified his divine title to the throne, and that title was founded on the truth of the christian revelation. As real virtue is sonietimes excited by un- deserved applause, the specious piety of Constantine, if at first it was only specious, might gradually, by the influence of praise, of habit, and of example, be ma- tured into serious faith and fervent devotion. The bishops and teachers of the new sect, whose dress and manners had not qualified them for the residence of a court, were admitted to the imperial table ; they ac- companied the monarch in his expeditions; and the ascendant which one of them, an Egyptian or a Span- iard', acquired over his mind, was imputed by the pagans to the effect of magic *". Lactantius, who has adorned the precepts of the gospel with the eloquence of Cicero'; and Eusebius, who has consecrated the learning and philosophy of the Greeks to the service of religion"', were both received into the friendship and familiarity of their sovereign: and those able masters of controversy could patiently watch the soft and yield- ' This favourite was probably the great Osius, bishop of Cordova, who preferred the pastoral care of the whole church to the government of a particular diocese. His character is magnificently, though concisely, ex- pressed by Athanasius, torn. i. p. 703. See Tillemont, Mem. Eccles. torn, vii. p. 524 — 561. Osius was accused, perhaps unjustly, of retiring from court with a very ample fortune. ^ See Eusebius in Vit. Constant, passim ; and Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 104. ' The Christianity of Lactantius was of a moral, rather than of a mysteri- ous cast. " Erat pene rudis (says the orthodox Bull) disciplinae christiana3, et in rhetorica melius quam in theologia veisatus." Defensio Fidei Nicenae, sect. ii. c. 14. ™ Fabricius, with his usual diligence, has collected a list of between three and four hundred authors quoted in the Evangelical Preparation of Eusebius. See Bibliothec. Gitec. 1. v. c. 4. torn. vi. p. 37 — 56.