Under the advice of Eusebius, the emperor, in his own name, sent to Anulinus, Proconsul of Africa, a decree most favorable to the Christians throughout that region; he also made presents of large sums of money to the bishops of Africa, Numidia, and Mauritania, who had been plundered in the persecutions of Maximian; he also sent a decree ordaining that all church prelates be freed from obligation to discharge any public, military, or political duties and offices; also, he made a decree commanding a certain council to be held concerning the affairs of Cæcilianus, Bishop of Carthage, and sent to Miltiades, Bishop of Rome, copies of the charges against Cæcilianus; also, a decree addressed to Chrestus, Bishop of Syracuse, commanding that a council of many bishops, both of Africa and of Gaul, should assemble at the city of Arles, in order to consider and determine certain questions which were disputed among the faithful. In short, counseled by Eusebius, who never doubted the ultimate overthrow of idolatry, and the ultimate triumph of whatever ecclesiastical system might be established in place of the Christian communities, Constantine zealously strove in every way to identify himself and his government with the new religion, and to hold himself out as the head of the Church, as well as of the state. At the same time he steadily pursued a secret policy of winning to himself the affection and confidence of the Christian subjects of the Emperor Licinius, by the use of agents whom he kept in his own service, in the household of every bishop of the Eastern Church. This zeal in the service of the established ecclesiasticism soon met with the great reward which Eusebius had promised to the emperor; for, throughout the length and breadth of the churches it began to be commonly declared that "Constantine was the divinely-appointed protector of the Christians"; that "God was the friend and vigilant protector of Constantine"; and that "no man could be his equal, and no man could stand against him." Licinius soon perceived the influence of these machinations, and saw that, even in his own dominions, the Christians, and especially the prelates, offered up more prayers for Constantine than for himself--"so that he did not suppose," saith Eusebius, "that they offered prayers for him at all, but persuaded himself that they did all things, and propitiated the Deity, only for the divinely-favored Emperor Constantine."