adversary to their religion, had been obliged to give of them, and which they had retained for more than a century, as appears by their own writers. That there were Christian soldiers in this more corrupt century of the church, it is impossible to deny. For such frequent mention is made of them in the histories, which relate to this period, that we cannot refuse our assent to one or other of the propositions, either that there were men in the armies, who called themselves Christians, or that there were men in them, who had that name given them by others. That they were Christians, however, is another question. They were probably such Christians, as Dion mentioned to have been among the life-guards of Dioclesian and Maximian, and of Constantius and Maximus, of whom Maximilian observed, "These men may know what it is expedient for them to do, but I am a Christian, and therefore I cannot fight." Indeed, that real Christians could have been found in the army in this century is impossible, for the military oath, which was full of idolatry, and the adoration of the standards, and the performance of sacrifice, still continued as services[14] not to be dispensed with by the soldiery. No one, therefore, can believe, that men in the full practice of Pagan idolatry, as every legionary soldier must then have been, were real Christians, merely because it is recorded in history, that men, calling themselves Christians, were found in the army in those times. On the other hand, if any soldiers professed Christianity at this period, or are related by authors to have professed it, and yet to have remained soldiers, it may be directly pronounced, that they could only have been nominal or corrupted Christians. [Footnote 14: The military oath was not altered for Christians till the next century, when they were allowed to swear "by God, by Christ, and by the Holy Spirit, and by the majesty of the emperor, which, next to God, is to be loved and honoured by mankind."]