OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

271

be seen within the walls of an idolatrous tern- chap,pie; while he distributed through the provincesa variety of medals and pictures, which repre-sented the emperor in an humble and suppliantposture of Christian devotion . 1

The pride of Constantine , who refused the Delay ofprivileges of a catechumen, cannot easily be [• l s s m b ^j’fexplained or excused; but the delay of his bap-tism rnay be justified by the maxims and the death,practice of ecclesiastical antiquity. The sacra-ment of baptism 11 was regularly administered bythe bishop himself, with his assistant clergy, inthe cathedral church of the diocese, during thefifty days between the solemn festivals of easterand pentecost; and this holy term admitted anumerous band of infants and adult personsinto the bosom of the church. The discretionof parents often suspended the baptism of theirchildren till they could understand the obliga-tions which they contracted; the severity ofancient bishops exacted from the new convertsa noviciate of two or three years; and the ca-techumens themselves, from different motivesof a temporal or a spiritual nature, were sel-dom impatient to assume the character of per-fect and initiated Christians . The sacramentof baptism was supposed to contain a full and

r Eusebius in Vit. Constant. I. iv, c. 15, 16.

x The theory and practice of antiquity with regard to the sacramentof baptism, have been copiously explained by Dom. Chard on, Hist, desSacremens, tom. i, p. 3*405 ; Dom. Mavtenne, de Ritibus Ecclesite An-tiquis, tom. i; and by Bingham, in the tenth and eleventh books of hisChristian Antiquities. One circumstance may be observed, in whichthe modern churches have materially departed from the ancient custom.

The sacrament of baptism (even when it was administered to infants)wax immediately followed b>y confirmation and the holy communion*