As a heathen, Constantine was the worshiper of Apollo or the sun, a fact that sheds much light upon his edict enjoining men to observe the venerable day of the sun. Thus Gibbon testifies:— “The devotion of Constantine was more peculiarly directed to the genius of the sun, the Apollo of Greek and Roman mythology; and he was pleased to be represented with the symbols of the god of light and poetry.... The altars of Apollo were crowned with the votive offerings of Constantine; and the credulous multitude were taught to believe that the emperor was permitted to behold with mortal eyes the visible majesty of their tutelar deity.... The sun was universally celebrated as the invincible guide and protector of Constantine.”[744] His character as a professor of Christianity is thus described:— “The sincerity of the man, who in a short period effected such amazing changes in the religious world, is best known to Him who searches the heart. Certain it is that his subsequent life furnished no evidence of conversion to God. He waded without remorse through seas of blood, and was a most tyrannical prince.”[745] A few words relative to his character as a man will complete our view of his fitness to legislate for the church. This man, when elevated to the highest place of earthly power, caused his eldest son, Crispus, to be privately murdered, lest the fame of the son should eclipse that of the father. In the same ruin was involved his nephew Licinius, “whose rank was his only crime,” and this was followed by the execution “perhaps of a guilty wife.”[746] Such was the man who elevated Sunday to the throne of the Roman Empire; and such the nature of the institution which he thus elevated. A recent English writer says of Constantine’s Sunday law that it “would seem to have been rather to promote heathen than Christian worship.” And he shows how this heathen emperor became a Christian, and how this heathen statute became a Christian law. Thus he says:— “At a LATER PERIOD, carried away by the current of opinion, he declared himself a convert to the church. Christianity, then, or what he was pleased to call by that name, became the law of the land, and the edict of A. D. 321, being unrevoked, was enforced as a Christian ordinance.”[747] Thus it is seen that a law, enacted in support of a heathen institution, after a few years came to be considered a Christian ordinance; and Constantine himself, four years after his Sunday edict, was able to control the church, as represented in the general council of Nice, so as to cause the members of that council to establish their annual festival of the passover upon Sunday.[748] Paganism had prepared the institution from ancient days, and had now elevated it to supreme power; its work was accomplished.