THE DECLINE AND FALL

870

CHAP.

XX.

Change olthe natio-nal reli-gion.

traction, was invested with the double charac-ter of ambassador and bishop. He embarkedon the Red sea with two hundred horses of thepurest breed of Cappadocia , which were sentby the emperor to the prince of the Saba;ans,or Ilomerites. Theophilus was entrusted withmany other useful or curious presents, whichmight raise the admiration, and conciliate thefriendship, of the barbarians; and he success-fully employed several years in a pastoral visitto the churches of the torrid zone. 1

The irresistible power of the Roman emperorswas displayed in the important and dangerouschange of the national religion. The terrors ofa military force silenced the faint and unsup-ported murmurs of the pagans, and there wasreason to expect, that the cheerful submissionof the Christian clergy, as well as people, wouldbe the result of conscience and gratitude. Itwas long since established, as a fundamentalmaxim of the Roman constitution, that everyrank of citizens w'ere alike subject to the laws,and that the care of religion was the right aswell as the duty of the civil magistrate. Con-stantine and his successors could not easilypersuade themselves that they had forfeited,by their conversion, any branch of the impe-rial prerogatives, or that they w ere incapable ofgiving laws to a religion which they had pro-tected and embraced. The emperors still con-

1 Philostorgius , 1. iii, c. 4, 5, 6, with Godefroy’s learned observation'.The historical narrative is soon lost in an inquiry concerning the seatof paradise, strange monsters, &c.