ays Eusebius, "_such as
maintained doctrines and opinions contrary to the church, were
suppressed._"[446:5]

This Constantine, says Eusebius:

"Caused his image to be engraven on his gold coins, in the
form of prayer, with his hands joined together, and looking up
towards Heaven." "And over divers gates of his palace, he was
drawn praying, and lifting up his hands and eyes to
heaven."[446:6]

After his death, "effigies of this blessed man" were engraved on the
Roman coins, "sitting in and driving a chariot, and a hand reached down
from heaven to receive and take him up."[446:7]

The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor, his
exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the
venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a
palace, and as the lower ranks of society are governed by example, the
conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of
riches, _was soon followed by dependent multitudes_. Constantine passed
a law which gave freedom to all the slaves who should embrace
Christianity, and to those who were not slaves, he gave a white garment
and twenty pieces of gold, upon their embracing the Christian faith. The
common people were thus _purchased_ at such an easy rate that, in one
year, _twelve thousand men were baptised at Rome_, besides a
proportionable number of women and children.[447:1]

To suppress the opinions of philosophers, which were contrary to
Christianity, the Christian emperors published edicts. The respective
decrees of the emperors Constantine and Theodosius,[447:2] generally ran
in the words, "that all writings adverse to the claims of the Christian
religion, in the possession of whomsoever they should be found, should
be committed to the fire," as the pious emperors would not that those
things tending to provoke God to wrath, should be allowed to offend the
minds of the piously disposed.

The following is a decree of the Emperor Theodosius of this purport:

"We decree, therefore, that all writings, whatever, which
Porphyry or anyone else hath written against the Christian
religion, in the possession of whomsoever they shall be found
should be committed to the fire; for we would not suffer any
of those things so much as to come to men's ears, which tend
to provoke God to wrath and offend the minds of the
_pious_."[447:3]

A similar decree of the emperor fo