Ruri tamen positi agrorum culturae libere licenterque in- serdant, quoniam frequenter evenit, ut non aptius alio die frumenta sulcis aut vineae scrobibus mandentur, ne occasione momenti pereat commoditas coelesti provisione concessa. Dat. Xon. Mart. Crispo ii. et Constantino ii. Coss." In English: "On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agri- culture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits ; because it often happens that another day is not so suitable for grain-sowing or for vine-planting ; lest by neglecting the proper moment for such operations the boimty of heaven should be lost. (Given the Tth day of March, Crispus and Constantine being consuls each of them for the second time.)" The prohibition of military exercises is mentioned by Eusebius, Vita Const. IV. 19, 20, and seems to refer to a somewhat later period. In this point Constantine was in advance of modern Christian princes, who prefer Sunday for parades. ■•^ Cod. Theod. 1. ii. tit. 8, 1 : " Sicut indignissimum videbatur, diem SoUs . , . altercantibus jurgiis et noxiis partium contentionibus occupari, ita gratum et jocun- § 75. THE CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS SUNDAY. 381 tive and protective legislation, to which the state ought to con- fine itself in matters of religion, and enjoined a certain positive observance of Sunday, in requiring the Christian soldiers to attend Christian worship, and the heathen soldiers, in the open field, at a given signal, with ejes and hands raised towards heaven, to recite the following, certainly very indefinite, form of prayer : " Thee alone we acknowledge as God, thee we reverence as king, to thee we call as our helper. To thee we owe our victories, by thee have we obtained the mastery of our enemies. To thee we give thanks for benefits already re- ceived, from thee we hope for benefits to come. We all fall at thy feet, and fervently beg that thou wouldest preserve to us our emperor Constantine and his divinely beloved sons in long life healthful and victorious." ' Constantine's successors pursued the Sunday legislation which he had initiated, and gave a legal sanction and civil significance also to other holy days of the church, which have no Scriptural authority, so that the special reverence due to the Lord's Day was obscured in proportion as the number of rival claims increased. Thus Theodosius I. increased the num- ber of judicial holidays to one hundred and twenty-four. The Valentinians, I. and II., prohibited the exaction of taxes and the collection of moneys on Sunday, and enforced the previous- ly enacted prohibition of lawsuits. Theodosius the Great, in 386, and still more stringently the younger Theodosius, in 426^ forbade theatrical performances, and Leo and Anthemius, in 460, prohibited other secular amusements, on the Lord's Day.^ Such laws, however, were probably never rigidly executed. A council of Carthage, in 401, laments the people's passion for theatrical and