290

THE DECLINE AND PALL

chap The game messenger who carried over to Af-XX ' rica the head of Maxentius , might be entrustedwith an epistle to Caeciliau, bishop of Carthage .The emperor acquaints him, that the treasurersof the province are directed to pay into hishands the sum of three thousand folles, or eigh-teen thousand pouuds sterling, and to obey hisfarther requisitions for the relief of the churchesof Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania . 1 The li-berality of Constantine increased in a just pro-portion to his faith, and to his vices. He as-signed in each city a regular allowance of corn,to supply the fund of ecclesiastical charity, andthe persons of both sexes who embraced themonastic life, became the peculiar favourites oftheir sovereign. The Christian temples of An-tioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Constantinople ,&c. displayed the ostentatious piety of a prince,ambitious in a declining age to equal the per-fect labours of antiquity.™ The form of thesereligious edifices was simple and oblong; thoughthey might sometimes swell into the shape of adome, and sometimes branch into the figure of across. The timbers were framed for the mostpart of cedars of Libanus; the roof was covered

1 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 1- x, 6; in Vit. Constantin. 1 . iv, c. 28.He repeatedly expatiates on the liberality of the Christian hero,which the bishop himself had an opportunity of knowing, and evenof tasting.

m Eusebius , Hist. Eccles. 1. x, c. 2, 3, 4. The bishop of Ccsarea,who studied and gratified the taste of his master, pronounced in publican elaborate description of the church of Jerusalem ^in Vit. Cons. 1. iv,e. 46). It no longer exists; but he has inserted in the life of Constan-tine (1. iii, c. 30) a short account of the architecture and ornaments.He likewise mentions the church of the holy apostles at Constantinople (1. iv, c. 68).