OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.

had 'acquired in his youth. As he graduallyadvanced in the knowledge of truth, he pro-portionably declined in the practice of virtue;and the same year of his reign in which he con-vened the council of Nice, was polluted by theexecution, or rather murder, of his eldest son.This date is alone sufficient to refute the igno-rant and malicious suggestions of Zosimus, *who affirms, that after the death of Crispus , theremorse of his father accepted from the minis-ters of Christianity the expiation which he hadvainly solicited from the pagan pontiffs. Atthe time of the death of Crispus , the emperorcould no longer hesitate in the choice of a reli-gion ; he could no longer be ignorant that thechurch was possessed of an infallible remedy,though he chose to defer the application of it,till the approach of death had removed thetemptation and danger of a relapse. The bi-shops, whom he summoned in his last illness tothe palace of Nicomedia, were edified by thefervour with which he requested and receivedthe sacrament of baptism, by the solemn pro-testation that the remainder of his life shouldbe worthy of a disciple of Christ, and by hishumble refusal to wear the imperial pui ple af-ter he had been clothed in the white garmentof a neophyte. The example and reputation of

2 Zosimus , 1. ii, p. 104. For this disingenuous falsehood he has de-served and experienced the harshest treatment from all the ecclesiasticalwriters, except Cardinal Baronius (a. d. 321, No. 15-28), who hadoccasion to employ the infidel on a particular service against the ArianEusebius.

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