OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

ride/ was disregarded by the Christians of theage which immediately followed the conversionof Constantine .' But the catholic church, bothof the East and of the West, has adopted aprodigy, which favours, or seems to favour, thepopular worship of the cross. The vision ofConstantine maintained an honourable place inthe legend of superstition, till the bold and sa-gacious spirit of criticism presumed to depre-ciate the triumph, and to arraign the truth, ofthe first Christian emperor/

The protestant and philosophic readers ofTiicoon-the present age will incline to believe, that, in Con°u n °the account of his own conversion, Constantine beattested a wilful falsehood by a solemn anddeliberate perjury. They may not hesitate topronounce, that, in the choice of religion, hismind was determined only by a sense of inte-rest ; and that (according to the expression of

41 Gelasius Cyzic. in Act. Concil. Nicen. 2. i, c. 4.

* The advocate* for the vision are unable to prodace a single testi-mony from the fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries, who, in theirvoluminous writings, repeatedly celebrate the triumph of the churchand of Constantine . As these venerable men had not any dislike to amiracle, we may suspect (and the suspicion is confirmed by the igno-ranee of Jerom) that they were all unacquainted with the life of Con-stantine by Eusebius . This tract was recovered by the diligence ofthose who translated or continued his Ecclesiastical History , and whohave represented in various colours the vision of the cross.

f Godefroy was the first who, in the year 1613 (Not. ad Philostor*gium, 1. i, o. 6, p. 16), expressed any doubt of a miracle which hadbeen supported with equal zeal by Cardinal Baronius , and the Cantu-iiators of Magdeburg . Since that time, many of the protestant criticshave inclined towards doubt and disbelief. The objections are urgedwith great force, by M. Chauffepil (Dictionnaire Critique, tom . iv,p. 6-ii); and, in the year 1774, a doctor of Sorbonne, the Abbi duVoisin, published an apology, which deserves the praise of learnlogand moderation

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CHAP.

XX.