“The Emperor Constantine the fourth day after his baptism conferred this privilege on the pontiff of the Roman church, that in the whole Roman world priests should regard him as their head, as judges do the king.” This sentence is part of the History [Life] of Sylvester,[458] and it leaves no doubt where [nor why] the document gets its title “privilege.” But, in the manner of those who fabricate lies, he begins with the truth for the purpose of winning confidence in his later statements, which are false, as Sinon says in Virgil: “... Whate’er My fate ordains, my words shall be sincere: I neither can nor dare my birth disclaim; Greece is my country, Sinon is my name.”[459] This first; then he put in his lies. So our Sinon does here; for when he had begun with the truth, he adds: “In this privilege, among other things, is this: ‘We—together with all our satraps and the whole Senate and the nobles also, and all the people subject to the government of the Roman church[460]—considered it advisable that, as the blessed Peter is seen to have been constituted vicar of God on the earth, so the pontiffs who are the representatives of that same chief of the apostles, should obtain from us and our Empire the power of a supremacy greater than the clemency of our earthly imperial serenity is seen to have conceded to it.’” O thou scoundrel, thou villain! The same history [the Life of Sylvester] which you allege as your evidence, says that for a long time none of senatorial rank was willing to accept the Christian religion, and that Constantine solicited the poor with bribes to be baptized. And you say that within the first days, immediately, the Senate, the nobles, the satraps, as though already Christians, with the Caesar passed decrees for the honoring of the Roman church! What! How do you want to have satraps come in here? Numskull, blockhead! Do the Caesars speak thus; are Roman decrees usually drafted thus? Whoever heard of satraps being mentioned in the councils of the Romans?[461] I do not remember ever to have read of any Roman satrap being mentioned, or even of a satrap in any of the Roman provinces. But this fellow speaks of the Emperor’s satraps, and puts them in before the Senate, though all honors, even those bestowed upon the ruling prince, are decreed by the Senate alone, or with the addition “and the Roman people.” Thus we see carved on ancient stones or bronze tablets or coins two letters, “S. C.,” that is “By decree of the Senate,” or four, “S. P. Q. R.,” that is, “The Senate and the Roman People.” And according to Tertullian, when Pontius Pilate had written to Tiberius Caesar and not to the Senate concerning the wonderful deeds of Christ, inasmuch as magistrates were supposed to write concerning important matters to the Senate, the Senate gave way to spite and opposed Tiberius’ proposal that Jesus be worshipped as a God, merely on account