and his cause by the execution of Licinius and his son. The emperor now issued a general exhortation to his subjects to embrace the Christian religion, still leaving them, however, to their own free conviction. In the year 325, as patron of the chm'ch, he summoned the council of Nice, and himself attended it; banished the Arians, though he after- "\vards recalled them ; and, in his monarchical spirit of uni- formity, showed great zeal for the settlement of all theological disputes, while he was blind to their deep significance. He first introduced the practice of subscrij^tion to the articles of a written creed and of the infliction of civil punishments for non-conformity. In the years 325-329, in connection with his mother, Helena, he erected magnificent churches on the sacred spots in Jerusalem. As heathenism had still the preponderance in Home, where it was hallowed by its great traditions, Constantino, by di^-iue ' For the Acta St. Silrestri and the II. Eccl. of Nicephorus Callist. Tii. 34 (iu Baronius, ad ann. 324) are of course not reliable authority on this point. - He commanded the Christians, for example, to hold their large assemblies in open fields instead of in the churches, because the fresh air was more wholesome for them than the close atmosphere in a building ! § 2. coNSTAinrmE the gkeat. 33 command as he supposed," in the year 330, transferred the seat of his government to Byzantium, and thus fixed the policy, already initiated by Domitian, of orientalizing and dividing the empire. In the selection of the unrivalled locality he showed more taste and genius than the founders of Madrid, Yienna, Berlin, St. Petersburg, or Washington. "With in- credible rapidity, and by all the means within reach of an absolute monarch, he turned this nobly situated town, con- necting two seas and two continents, into a splendid residence and a new Christiaji Rome, " for which now," as Gregory of Nazianzen expresses it, " sea and land emuhite each other, to load it with their treasures, and crown it queen of cities." ' Here, instead of idol temples and altars, churches and crucifixes rose ; though among them the statues of patron deities from all over Greece, mutilated by all sorts of tasteless adaptations, were also gathered in the new metropolis.' The main hall in the palace was adorned with representations of the crucifixion and other biblical scenes. The gladiatorial shows, so popular in Rome, were forbidden here, though theatres, amphitheatres, and hippodromes kept their place. It could nowhere be mis- taken, that the new imperial residence was as to all outward appearance a Christian city. The smoke of heathen sacrifices never rose from the seven hills of New Rome except during the short reign of Julian the Apostate. It became the resi- dence of a bishop who not only claimed the authority of the apostolic see of neighboring Ejjhesus, but soon outshone the ' " Jubente Deo," says he in oue of his laws. Cod. Theodos.