Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/450

 4S2 THE DECLINE AND FALL C II A P. gion to their country ; but as long as peace subsisted ___U__ between the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the magi was effectually restrained by the interposition of Constantine"'. The rays of the gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of jews, who had pene- trated into Arabia and /Ethiopia', opposed the pro- gress of Christianity ; but the labour of the missionaries was in some measure facilitated by a previous know- ledge 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 Con- stantius, Theophilus'', who was himself of Indian ex- traction, was invested with the double character of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red sea with two hundred horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor to the prince of the Sabseans, or Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted with many other useful or curious presents, which might raise the admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the barbarians ; and he successfully em- ployed several years in a pastoral visit to the churches of the torrid zone'. Change of The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was the national tii-.i- ii.ii i p religion. displayed m the nnportant and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of a military force silenced the faint and unsupported murmurs of the pagans ; and there was reason to expect, that the chcer- •• 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. ' See Basnage, Hist, des Juifs, torn. vii. p. 182. torn. viii. p. 333. torn. ix. p. 810. The curious diligence of this writer pursues the Jewish exiles to the extremities of the globe. ^ Theophilus had been given in his infancy as a hostage by his country- men of the isle of Diva, and was educated by the Romans in learning and piety. The Maldives, of which Male, or Diva, may be the capital, are a cluster of nineteen hundred or two thousand minute islands in the Indian ocean. The ancients were imperfectly acquainted with the Maldives ; but they are described in the two mahoinetan travellers of the ninth century, published by Renaudot, Geograph. Nubiensis, p. 30, 31. D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque Orienlale, p. 704 ; Hist. Generaledes Voyages, torn. viii. ' Philostorgius, 1. iii. c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy's learned observations. The historical narrative is soon lost in an enquiry concerning the seat of paradise, strange monsters, etc.