The character of the first Christian emperor is not one which strikes us with admiration.  As emperor he sank into “a cruel and dissolute monarch, corrupted by his fortune, or raised by conquest above the necessity of dissimulation ... the old age of Constantine was disgraced by the opposite yet reconcilable vices of rapaciousness and prodigality” (Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” vol. ii., p. 347).  He was as effeminate as he was vicious.  “He is represented with false hair of various colours, laboriously arranged by the skilful artists of the time; a diadem of a new and more expensive fashion; a profusion of gems and pearls, of collars and bracelets, and a variegated flowing robe of silk, most curiously embroidered with flowers of gold.”  To his other vices he added most bloodthirsty cruelty.  He strangled Licinius, after defeating him; murdered his own son Crispus, his nephew Licinius, and his wife Fausta, together with a number of others.  It must indeed have needed an efficacious baptism to wash away his crimes; and “future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration” (Ibid, pp. 471, 472).

The wealth of the Christian churches was considerable during the third century, and the bishops and clergy lived in much pomp and luxury.  “Though several [bishops] yet continued to exhibit to the world illustrious examples of primitive piety and Christian virtue, yet many were sunk in luxury and voluptuousness, puffed up with vanity, arrogance, and ambition, possessed with a spirit of contention and discord, and addicted to many other vices that cast an undeserved reproach upon the holy religion of which they were the unworthy professors and ministers.  This is testified in such an ample manner by the repeated complaints of many of the most respectable writers of this age, that truth will not permit us to spread the veil which we should otherwise be desirous to cast over such enormities among an order so sacred....  The example of the bishops was ambitiously imitated by the presbyters, who, neglecting the sacred duties of their station, abandoned themselves to the indolence and delicacy of an effeminate and luxurious life.  The deacons, beholding the presbyters deserting thus their functions, boldly usurped their rights and privileges; and the effects of a corrupt ambition were spread through every rank of the sacred order” (p. 73).  During this century also we find much scandal caused by the pretended celibacy of the clergy, for the people—­regarding celibacy as purer than marriage, and considering that “they, who took wives, were of all others the most subject to the influence of malignant demons”—­urged their clergy to remain celibate, “and many of the sacred order, especially in Africa, consented to satisfy the desires of the people, and endeavoured to do this in such a manner as not to offer an entire violence to their own inclinations.  For this