CENTURY IV.


Constantine attained undisputed and sole authority A.D. 324, and in the
year 325 he summoned the first general council, that of Nicea, or Nice,
which condemned the errors of Arius, and declared Christ to be of the
same substance as the Father. This council has given its name to the
"Nicene Creed," although that creed, as now recited, differs somewhat
from the creed issued at Nice, and received its present form at the
Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. During the reign of Constantine,
the Church grew swiftly in power and influence, a growth much aided by
the penal laws passed against Paganism. The moment Christianity was able
to seize the sword, it wielded it remorselessly, and cut its way to
supremacy in the Roman world. Bribes and penalties shared together in
the work of conversion. "The hopes of wealth and honours, the example of
an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused
conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the
apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalised a forward zeal by
the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by
municipal privileges and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new
capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that
Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. As the lower
ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who
possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon
followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was
purchased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve
thousand men were baptised at Rome, besides a proportionable number of
women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of
gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert" (Gibbon's
"Decline and Fall," vol. ii. pp. 472, 473). With Constantine began the