tatements of
some ecclesiastical writers; but historical criticism has proved, beyond
every doubt, that, even a century after the conversion of that monarch,
Paganism was by no means extinct, and counted many adherents, even amongst
the highest classes of Roman society.

When Constantine proclaimed his conversion to the religion of the Cross,
its adherents formed but a minority of the population of the Roman
empire.(28) The deficiency of their numbers was, however, compensated by
their moral advantages; for they were united by the worship of the one
true God, and ardently devoted to a religion which they had voluntarily
embraced, and for which they had suffered so much. The Pagans were, on the
contrary, disunited, and in a great measure indifferent to a religion
whose doctrines were derided by the more enlightened of them, though,
considering it as a political institution necessary for the maintenance of
the empire, they often displayed great zeal in its defence. The Christians
of that time may be compared to the Greeks when they combated the Persians
on the field of Marathon and at Thermopylae; but, alas! their victory under
Constantine proved as fatal to the purity of their religion as that of the
Greeks under Alexander to their political and military virtues. Both of
them became corrupted by adopting the ideas and manners of their conquered
adversaries.

Some writers have suspected that the conversion of Constantine was more
due to political than religious motives; but though great and many were
the faults of that monarch, his sincerity in embracing the Christian
religion cannot be doubted, because it was a step more contrary than
favourable to his political interests. The Christians formed, as I have
said above, only a minority of the population of the empire, and
particularly so in its western provinces. There was not a single Christian
in the Roman senate; and the aristocracy of Rome, whose privileges and
interests were intimately connected with the religious institutions of the
empire, were most zealous in their defence. The municipal bodies of the
principal cities were also blindly devoted to the national religion, whose
existence was considered by many as inseparable from that of the empire
itself; and these bodies were generally the chief promoters of those
terrible persecutions to which the Christians had been so many times
subjected. The Pagan clergy, rich, powerful, and numerous, were ever
zealous in excit