stantine the Great, who became sole ruler of the East
and West in 323, after ten years' joint government with Licinius, is
remarkable for the change which was then wrought in the religion and
philosophy of the empire by the emperor's embracing the Christian
faith. His conversion occurred in 312, and on his coming to the united
sovereignty the Christians were at once released from every punishment
and disability on account of their religion, which was then more than
tolerated; they were put upon a nearly equal footing with the pagans,
and every minister of the Church was released from the burden of
civil and military duties. Whether the emperor's conversion arose from
education, from conviction, or from state policy, we have no means of
knowing; but Christianity did not reach the throne before it was the
religion of a most important class of his subjects, and the Egyptian
Christians soon found themselves numerous enough to call the Greek
Christians heretics, as the Greek Christians had already begun to
designate the Jewish.

The Greeks of Alexandria had formed rather a school of philosophy than
a religious sect. Before Alexander's conquest the Greek settlers
at Naucratis had thought it necessary to have their own temples and
sacrifices; but since the building of Alexandria they had been smitten
with the love of Eastern mysticism, and content to worship in the
temples of Serapis and Mithra, and to receive instruction from the
Egyptian priests. They had supported the religion of the conquered
Egyptians without wholly believing it; and had shaken by their ridicule
the respect for the very ceremonies which they upheld by law. Polytheism
among the Greeks had been further shaken by the platonists; and
Christianity spread in about equal proportions among the Greeks and the
Egyptians. Before the conversion of Constantine the Egyptian church
had already spread into every city of the province, and had a regular
episcopal government. Till the time of Heraclas and Dionysius, the
bishops had been always chosen by the votes of the presbyters, as the
archdeacons were by the deacons. Dionysius in his public epistles joins
with himself his fellow-presbyters as if he were only the first among
equals; but after that time some irregularities had crept into the
elections, and latterly the Church had become more monarchical. There
was a patriarch in Alexandria, with a bishop in every other large city,
each assisted by a body of priests and de