stathius of Antioch, and Paul of
Constantinople were deposed on various f accusations, by the sentence of
numerous councils; and were afterwards banished into distant provinces
by the first of the Christian emperors, who, in the last moments of his
life, received the rites of baptism from the Arian bishop of Nicomedia.
The ecclesiastical government of Constantine cannot be justified
from the reproach of levity and weakness. But the credulous monarch,
unskilled in the stratagems of theological warfare, might be deceived by
the modest and specious professions of the heretics, whose sentiments he
never perfectly understood; and while he protected Arius, and persecuted
Athanasius, he still considered the council of Nice as the bulwark of
the Christian faith, and the peculiar glory of his own reign. [84]

[Footnote 83: We derive the original story from Athanasius, (tom. i.
p. 670,) who expresses some reluctance to stigmatize the memory of the
dead. He might exaggerate; but the perpetual commerce of Alexandria and
Constantinople would have rendered it dangerous to invent. Those who
press the literal narrative of the death of Arius (his bowels suddenly
burst out in a privy) must make their option between poison and
miracle.]

[Footnote 84: The change in the sentiments, or at least in the conduct,
of Constantine, may be traced in Eusebius, (in Vit. Constant. l. iii.
c. 23, l. iv. c. 41,) Socrates, (l. i. c. 23-39,) Sozomen, (l. ii.
c. 16-34,) Theodoret, (l. i. c. 14-34,) and Philostorgius, (l. ii. c.
1-17.) But the first of these writers was too near the scene of action,
and the others were too remote from it. It is singular enough, that the
important task of continuing the history of the church should have been
left for two laymen and a heretic.]

The sons of Constantine must have been admitted from their childhood
into the rank of catechumens; but they imitated, in the delay of
their baptism, the example of their father. Like him they presumed to
pronounce their judgment on mysteries into which they had never been
regularly initiated; [85] and the fate of the Trinitarian controversy
depended, in a great measure, on the sentiments of Constantius; who
inherited the provinces of the East, and acquired the possession of the
whole empire. The Arian presbyter or bishop, who had secreted for
his use the testament of the deceased emperor, improved the fortunate
occasion which had introduced him to the familiarity of a prince,
whos