The Roman Emperor, Constantine, professedly became a Christian, while he
virtually remained a heathen; A.D. 312.[213]

Christians were few in number before Constantine, but now pagans flocked
to the church and sat in its councils.

"Constantine married the Christian church to the heathen world." He
virtually united church and state. He convened the council of Nice and
they formed a creed A.D. 325.

Many protested against this council and its decisions but the mass
supported the Emperor and the creed.

Among obscure dissenters whom the ruling church called heretics may we
expect thereafter to find the nearest approach to Christianity as Jesus
taught it upon the Mount and elsewhere.

Mosheim says: No sooner had Constantine abolished the superstition of
his ancestors than magnificent churches were erected for the Christians,
which were richly adorned with pictures and images and bore striking
resemblances to the Pagan temples both within and without.[214]

The simplicity of the Gospel was clouded by the prodigious number of
rites and ceremonies which the bishops invented to embellish it.[215]

They imagined the Pagans would receive Christianity with more facility
when they saw the rites and ceremonies to which they were accustomed
adopted in the church. So the religion of the Christians was made to
conform very nearly to that of the Pagans in external appearance.[216]

The vice and insolent tyranny of many of the priesthood soon became
notorious.[217]

Neander says: Such individuals of the laity as were distinguished by
their piety from the great mass of nominal Christians and from the
worldly minded of the clergy often suffered persecution from the
latter.[218]

The name of Andeus stand prominent among the many dissenters who
protested against the corruptions of the ruling church at this
time.[219]

Isolated companies of devout Christians under various names rejected the
Sacraments. They were called Lampetians, Adelphians, Estatians,
Marcionites, Euchites, Massalians and Enthusiasts.[220]

Mosheim says: Enthusiasts who discarded the Sacraments and were rather
wrong headed than vicious lived among the Greeks and Assyrians for many
ages. They were known by the general and invidious name of Massalians or
Euchites. A foot-note says: This sect arose under the Emperor
Constantius about the year 361.[221]

We have numerous accounts of Christians who were prominent in the
dominant church of the fourth century who