With the abatement of persecution, St. Jerome acknowledged the Empire as a bulwark against evil but insisted that "imperial honours" were contrary to Christian teaching. His was an authoritative but minority voice: most Christians showed no qualms in the veneration of even "pagan" emperors. The peace of the emperors was the peace of God; as far as the Church was concerned, internal dissent and doctrinal schism were a far greater problem. The solution came from a hitherto unlikely source: as pontifex maximus Constantine I favoured the "Catholic Church of the Christians" against the Donatists because: