Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/445

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 427 had deserved, some extraordinary distinction: an ill- CHAP. . . . XX timed rigour might have blasted the unripcned 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 wor- ship. In his last visit to Rome, he piously disclaimed and insulted the superstition of his ancestors, by re- fusing to lead the military procession of the equestrian order, and to offer the public vows to the Jupiter of the Capitoline hill'. 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 he distributed through the provinces a variety of medals and pictures, which represented the emperor in an humble and suppliant posture of christian devotion ". The pride of Constantine, who refused the privileges Belay of of a catechumen, cannot easily be explained or ex- tin thl ap*" cused ; but the delay of his baptism may be justified by Foach of the maxims and the practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacrament of baptism " 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 ' Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 105. " Eusebius in Vit, Constant. 1. iv. c. 15, 16. " The theory and practice of antiquity with regard to tiie sacrament of baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom. Chardon, Hist, des Sacre- mens, tom. i. p. 3 — 405 ; Dom. Martenne de Ritibus Ecclesia; Antiquis, torn. i. ; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of iiis Christian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in which the modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom. The sacra- ment of baptism (even when it was administered to infants) was imme- diately followed by confirmation and the holy communion.