238

THE DECLINE AND FALL

chap, ample of the sovereign of Gaul; who, in the

_first- moments of his reign, acknowledged and

adored the majesty of the true and only God. !>The learned Eusebius has ascribed the faith ofConstantine to the miraculous sign which wasdisplayed in the heavens whilst he meditateda.d. 3i2. and prepared the Italian expedition.* The his-torian Zosimus maliciously asserts, that the em-peror had imbrued his hands in the blood ofhis eldest son, before he publicly renounced* d. 320. the gods of Rome and of his ancestors. 4 Theperplexity produced by these discordant au-thorities is derived from the behaviour of Con-stantine himself. According to the strictnessof ecclesiastical language, the first of the Chris-tian emperors was unworthy of that name, tillthe moment of his death; since it was onlya . d . 327. during his last illness that he received, as a ca-techumen, the imposition of hands,* and was

See Dnfresnoy, Prnefat. p. 5. Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. vi,p* 405*470. Lardner’s Credibility, part ii, vol. vii, p. 78-86. For myown part, I am almost convinced that Lactantius dedicated his Insti-tutions to the sovereign of Gan!, at a time when Galerius , Maximin,and even Licinius , persecuted the Christians; that is, between the years30G and 311.

b Lactant. Divin. Institut . i, 1 ; vii, 27. The first and most impor-tant of these passages is indeed wanting in twenty-eight manuscripts;but it is found in nineteen. If we weigh the comparative value of thesemanuscripts, one of 900 years old, in the king of France ’s library, maybe alleged in its favour; but the passage is omitted in the correct ma-nuscript of Bologna , which the P. de Montfaucon ascribes to the sixthor seventh century (Diarinm Italic, p. 409). The taste of most of theeditors (except Isxus, sec Lactant. edit. Dnfresnoy, tom. i, p. 596) hasfelt the genuine style of Lactantius .c Euseb.-in Vit. Constant. 1. i, c. 27-32.d Zosimus , 1. ii, p. 104.

e That rite was always used in making a catechumen (see Bingham’sAntiquities, 1. x, c. 1, p. 419. Dom. Chardon, Hist, des Sacremeos,tom. i, p. 62); and Coustantine received it for the jirsi time (Euseb. in

Vit