402

THE DECLINE AND FALL

( extracted from the pure and simple maxims of.the gospel.

Tdera- A modern writer, who, with a just confidence,ga"is°m’ a has prefixed to his own history the honourableepithets of political and philosophical, 11 accusesthe timid prudence of Montesquieu , for neglect-ing to enumerate, among the causes of the de-cline of the empire, a law of Constantine , bywhich the exercise of the pagan worship wasabsolutely suppressed, and a considerable partof his subjects was left destitute of priests, oftemples, and of any public religion. The zealof the philosophic historian for the rights ofmankind has induced him to acquiesce in theambiguous testimony of those ecclesiastics, whohave too lightly ascribed to their favourite herothe merit of a general persecution.' Instead ofalleging this imaginary law, which would haveblazed in the front of the imperial codes, wemay safely appeal to the original epistle, whichConstantine addressed to the followers of theancient religion, at a time when he no longerdisguised his conversion, nor dreaded the rivalsof his throne. He invites and exhorts, in themost pressing terms, the subjects of the Roman

b Histoire Politique ct Philosophique des Etablissemens des EuropSensdans les deux Indcs, tom. i, p. 9.

c According to Eusebius (in Vit. Constantin. I. ii, c. 45) the em-peror prohibited, both in cities and in the country, ra /xvira^a .tsc

StJoeXoXarfuaf, the abominable arts or parts of idolatry. Socrates (I. i,c. 17) and Sozomen (1. ii, c 4, 5) have represented the conduct ofConstantine with a just reuard to truth and history, which has beenneglected by Theodoret (I. v, c. 21) and Orosius (vii,28). Turn dcinde(vays the latter) piimiis Constantinus justo ordine et pio vieem verntedicto ; siquidem statuit citra ullam hominum caedem, paganorum tem-pi a claudi.