Page:History of the First Council of Nice.djvu/118

108 "In the first place, the impious perverseness of Arius, was investigated before our most religious emperor, Constantine. This is unmerited adulation. Constantine, although he exhibited much zeal for all the concerns of the Church, had never, as yet, received baptism, and continued to remain without the pale of the community of believers, being only a catechumen,

Neander says, "It is most probable that, carrying his heathen superstition into Christianity, he looked upon baptism as a sort of rite for the magical removal of sin, and so delayed it, in the confidence that, although he had not lived an exemplary life, he might yet, in the end, be enabled to enter into bliss, purified from all his sins." Even Eusebius of Cæsarea, his cotemporary historian and panegyrist, says he suffered persons to abuse his confidence with "indescribable hypocrasy."

The heathen writers of his time say, that, having inquired of a Platonic philosopher what he could do to atone for his crimes, it was replied to him, that there was no lustration for such atrocious conduct. However, when he had become very sick and near to death, A. D. 337, he was baptized by Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, who had influenced him to favor the Arians in his last years, and to banish many Orthodox bishops.

In the Encyclopædia Americana, Gibbon is said to have best described the character, influence, and policy of Constautine, of all who have attempted it. According to this historian he was brave, a favorite of his people, and a terror to his foes; fond of the sciences, as well as of arms, and gave them both his protection. But his zeal for Christianity was excited not less by the knowledge, that the religion, which was embraced by a majority of the Roman empire, must prevail, and the strength of the government must be increased by protecting it, than by a wish to apply its consoling powers to the relief of a heavy conscience.—See Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol., chap. 20. His impiety was unanimously condemned, as well as the blasphemous sentiments which he had propounded for the purpose of dishonoring the Son of God, alleging that he was created; that before he was made he existed not; that there was a period in which he had no existence; and that he can, according to his own free-will, be capable either of virtue or of vice. The holy Council condemned all these assertions, and impatiently refused to listen to such impious and foolish opinions, and such blasphemous expressions.