Thus it was that an emperor named Constantine decided first to give toleration to all cults and ultimately to adopt Christianity--"partly from a genuine moral sympathy, yet doubtless far more in the well-grounded belief that he had more to gain from the zealous sympathy of its professors than to lose by the aversion of those who still cultivated a languid paganism." This act made it the religion of the empire. But since Rome was mistress of half the civilized world, this acquisition of power and numbers at once gave to the new Faith an eminence it has never lost. The effect of this promotion was profound and lasting and vitally affected the destiny of Israel. Judaism and Christianity Contrasted. The attitude of enthroned Christianity was at once inimical to the parent Faith. At first sight it would seem that it might be more kindly disposed to a religion to which it owed so much and to which it was so closely related. Alas to confess it--for such is human nature--the very closeness of the relationship was the cause of its enmity. It regarded the very persistence of Judaism as a denial of its theories and as a challenge to its claims. Christianity declared the law abrogated; Judaism called it religion's keystone. Christianity declared that the Messiah had come; Judaism maintained he had not. Christians called Jesus a divinity--Son of God; the Jews spurned this as blasphemy. The Church taught a Trinity; the Synagogue made the indivisible Unity of God its cardinal principle. Spiritual monotheism became for the Jew a passion. The first act by which Christianity exercised its new power was to prohibit Jews from making converts to Judaism and to reward those who deserted it. Thus it conspired for the gradual elimination of the Jewish Faith.