Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from A Note-Book of Mediaeval History: A. D. 323 A. D. 1453
Constantine the Great (joint-emperor from 306, sole emperor 323 - 37) becomes a Christian catechumen; he is only baptized on his death-bed. In large measure he recog nizes Christianity as the most favoured State religion. Yet he abstains from open war against Pagan cults as a whole, pro fessing indeed a wish to reform them. His court remains largely, his bureaucracy almost wholly, Pagan. But he forbids the State sacrifices of Paganism, and the occult and openly immoral parts of Pagan worship (witchcraft, divination, evil magic lying oracles and the religious orgies of certain Oriental rites and their imitators in the West). This involves the neglect and disfavour of Pagan beliefs and cults, as Christianity will not, like other creeds of the gracco-roman World, take the position of one among many.
The Christianity of Constantine must be allowed in a more vague and qualified sense [than often asserted] the nicest accuracy is required in tracing the grada tions by which the monarch declared himself the Protector, and at length the Proselyte, of the Church [gibbon, ch. Xx].
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