red to the empire a race of princes, whose
faith was still more lively and sincere, as they imbibed, in their
earliest infancy, the spirit, or at least the doctrine, of Christianity.
War and commerce had spread the knowledge of the gospel beyond the
confines of the Roman provinces; and the Barbarians, who had disdained
as humble and proscribed sect, soon learned to esteem a religion which
had been so lately embraced by the greatest monarch, and the most
civilized nation, of the globe. [76] The Goths and Germans, who enlisted
under the standard of Rome, revered the cross which glittered at the
head of the legions, and their fierce countrymen received at the same
time the lessons of faith and of humanity. The kings of Iberia and
Armenia [76a] worshipped the god of their protector; and their subjects,
who have invariably preserved the name of Christians, soon formed
a sacred and perpetual connection with their Roman brethren. The
Christians of Persia were suspected, in time of war, of preferring their
religion to their country; but as long as peace subsisted between
the two empires, the persecuting spirit of the Magi was effectually
restrained by the interposition of Constantine. [77] The rays of the
gospel illuminated the coast of India. The colonies of Jews, who had
penetrated into Arabia and Ethiopia, [78] opposed the progress of
Christianity; but the labor of the missionaries was in some measure
facilitated by a previous knowledge of the Mosaic revelation; and
Abyssinia still reveres the memory of Frumentius, [78a] who, in the time
of Constantine, devoted his life to the conversion of those sequestered
regions. Under the reign of his son Constantius, Theophilus, [79] who
was himself of Indian extraction, was invested with the double character
of ambassador and bishop. He embarked on the Red Sea with two hundred
horses of the purest breed of Cappadocia, which were sent by the emperor
to the prince of the Sabaeans, or Homerites. Theophilus was intrusted
with many other useful or curious presents, which might raise the
admiration, and conciliate the friendship, of the Barbarians; and he
successfully employed several years in a pastoral visit to the churches
of the torrid zone. [80]

[Footnote 71: See Tillemont, Hist. des Empereurs, tom. iv. p. 429. The
Greeks, the Russians, and, in the darker ages, the Latins themselves,
have been desirous of placing Constantine in the catalogue of saints.]

[Footnote 72: See the third a