Page:History of the First Council of Nice.djvu/14

4 struck, which represented, on one side, himself, partially concealed by a veil, and, on the other, his figure in a chariot, drawn by horses ascending to heaven, and a hand reaching down from the sky to receive him. I was somewhat amused to find, in an old Spanish work by Mexia, translated and published in London, A. D. 1604, the singular remarks of that author upon the last part of Constantine's life. He says that appearances are against the propriety of some of his acts, but then he found they must be all right, because St. Jerome and several other saints and popes had endorsed the great emperor as a good Christian and heir to eternal bliss. The modern Protestant writers are not so lenient towards him. How it happens that no Arian histories exist, I know not; unless it is because their enemies, the trinitarians, have destroyed them. It was the custom to punish heretics and burn their books in the very first days of Christian rule. Christianity, as an institution of the government, was little better than the old religion. It soon became transformed, so that Christ would have been ashamed of its name. As soon as there were fortunes to be made in the Church, it became the fruitful field of worldly ambition.

In regard to the Canons and Decrees: I think the best time for the Easter Festival would have been the ancient, honored day of the Jewish Passover. It was opposed merely by a whim of Constantine, because, as a Roman, he hated the nation which his country had long detested and persecuted, that is, the Jews, although he was forced to admit that God had ever preferred them before all other people. His change in the Day of Rest arose from the same unjust prejudice. The Sabbath was as good for Gentiles, as it had been for