Page:The Net of Faith.pdf/419



These imperial and pagan contributions with which he came to the Christians did not become christianized then nor later. Just as his rule was pagan and of pagan origin then, so it is now. All these foreign additions brought in this manner into the Christian religion are not part of the true faith; they are a deceitful lie, a trap disguised in letters with which to offend and seduce the people away from God. The Emperor made them partakers of pagan customs; he accepted, by the fact of his becoming a Christian, to rule over the Christians, but he laid upon them the burden of royal authority as if it were an article of faith. And today toethe [sic] Roman Church confirms all this as being the true faith once given to the saints by the apostles.

Here it might be said: but what about the Christians who were in Rome or elsewhere, under the jurisdiction of Constantine in the days when he was still a pagan? Were they not, then, subject to his pagan sovereignty? Were they not carrying the burden of his royal authority? Why should his pagan rule be harmful when he became one of them, a Christian? Or, why

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