After such an array of testimony, which might be extended much farther if space would permit, it seems unnecessary to say more than this: the personal character and the political attitude of Constantine make it impossible to think of him as a “Christian Emperor.” He adopted and used the paganized Christianity of his time for personal ends, rather than because of true piety. The political aid which he gave it was overbalanced many times by the destruction of its best spiritual interests. Judged from the standpoint of the Bible and the facts of history, Constantine was the corrupter of Christianity, not its defender. FOOTNOTES: [184] See Schaff, vol. ii., chap. 64 _ff_. [185] _La Fin du Paganisme_: Étude sur les Dernières Luttes Religieuses en Occident, au Quatrième Siècle. Par Gaston Boissier, de l’Académie Française, et de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres. Tome premier, p. 28, Paris 1891. [186] _The Old Catholic Church_, etc., by W. D. Killen, D.D., pp. 70-72, Edinburgh, 1871. [187] _Decline_, etc., c. xxviii. [188] _Beda_, lib. i., c. xxx. [189] _The Religions of the World_, by F. W. Maurice, p. 185, London, 1886. [190] _Four Lectures on Early Church History_, by Charles Merivale, D.D., pp. 13, 14, New York. [191] _Ibid._, p. 45. [192] _Universal Church History_, by Rev. Dr. John Alzog, vol. i., p. 471, Cincinnati, 1874. [193] _Church History_, vol. iii., pp. 14-18. CHAPTER XI. CONSTANTINE’S LEGISLATION CONCERNING THE PAGAN SUNDAY. All his Tolerative Legislation Essentially Pagan--Christians did not Seek for Sunday Laws--The first Sunday Law, 321 A.D., Pagan in Every Particular--Essentially Identical with Existing Laws Concerning Other Days--Legislation against Heathen Religions Feeble and Unenforced--Constantine not a “Christian Prince.” The representative legislation of Constantine, with reference to Christianity, was pagan both as to its genius and form. The various edicts in favor of Christians contained little or nothing of true liberty of conscience. They were the steps by which Christianity, already paganized, was recognized, and gradually raised to a dominant place among the legal religions. This accorded with the prevailing syncretism, and the policy which Rome had always exercised toward foreign religions. On the other hand, the Emperor, still acting as _Pontifex Maximus_, and long before he was baptized into the fellowship of the Church, became its dictator. He convened and controlled the famous council at Nice (325 A.D.) while his hands were red with the blood of his kindred, whom he slew lest they might come between him and his ambition to be sole emperor.