p. 400, gives little credit to this whole account of Eusebius, and thus intimates the charge of deliberate falsehood. ' Euseb. Vit. Const, iv. 29 ad finem. * Const. Oratio ad sanctorum coehim, was preserved in Greek translation by Eusebius as an appendix to his biography of the emperor. § 2. C0N8TANTINE THE GREAT. 35 immorality, as in tlie obscene worship of Yenus in Phenicia ; or in places which were specially sacred to the Christians, as the sepulchre of Christ and the grove of Marnre; and he caused a number of deserted temples and images to be de- stroyed or tm'ned into Christian churches. Eusebius relates several such instances with evident approbation, and praises also his later edicts against various heretics and schismatics, but without mentioning the Arians. In his later years he seems, indeed, to have issued a general prohibition of idolatrous sacrifice ; Eusebius speaks of it, and his sons in 341 refer to an edict to that effect ; but the rej)etition of it by his successors proves, that, if issued, it was not carried into general execution under his reign. With this shrewd, cautious, and moderate policy of Con- stantine, which contrasts well with the violent fanaticism of his sons, accords the postponement of his own baptism to his last sickness.' For this he had the further motives of a super- stitious desire, which he himself expresses, to be baptized in the Jordan, whose waters had been sanctified by the Saviour's baptism, and no doubt also a fear, that he might by relapse forfeit the sacramental remission of sins. He wished to secure all the benefit of baptism as a complete expiation of past sins, with as little risk as possible, and thus to make the best of both worlds. Deathbed baptisms then were to half Christians of that age what deathbed conversions and deathbed com- munions are now. Yet he presumed to preach the gospel, he called himself the bishop of bishops, he convened the first general council, and made Christianity the religion of the em- pire, long before his baptism ! Strange as this inconsistency ' The pretended baptism of Constantine by the Roman bishop Sylvester in 324, and his bestowment of lands on the pope in connection with it, is a mediaeval fiction, still unblushingly defended indeed by Baronius (ad ann. 324, No. 43-49), but long since given up by other Roman Catholic historians, such as Noris, Tillemont, and Valesius. It is sufficiently refuted by the contemporary testimony of Eusebius alone (Vit. Const, iv. 61, 62), who places the baptism of Constantine at the end of his life, and minutely describes it ; and Socrates, Sozomen, Ambrose, and Jerome coincide with him. 36 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D. 311-590. appears to us, what shall we think of the court bishops who, from false prudence, relaxed in his favor the otherwise strict discipline of the church, and adnjitted him, at least tacitly, to the enjoyment of nearly all the privileges of believers, before he had