onsciously as the free and responsible
organs of the spirit of their age, which moulds them first before they
can mould it in turn, and that the spirit of the age itself, whether
good or bad or mixed, is but an instrument in the hands of Divine
Providence, which rules and overrules all the actions and motives of
men.

Through a history of three centuries Christianity had already overcome
the world, and thus rendered such an outward revolution, as has attached
itself to the name of this prince, both possible and unavoidable. It
were extremely superficial to refer so thorough and momentous a change
to the personal motives of an individual, be they motives of policy, of
piety, or of superstition. But unquestionably every age produces and
shapes its own organs, as its own purposes require. So in the case of
Constantine. He was distinguished by that genuine political wisdom,
which, putting itself at the head of the age, clearly saw that idolatry
had outlived itself in the Roman empire, and that Christianity alone
could breathe new vigor into it and furnish its moral support.
Especially on the point of the external catholic unity, his monarchical
politics accorded with the hierarchical episcopacy of the church. Hence
from the year 313 he placed himself in close connection with the
bishops, made peace and harmony his first object in the Donatist and
Arian controversies, and gave the predicate 'catholic' to the church in
all official documents. And as his predecessors were supreme pontiffs of
the heathen religion of the empire, so he desired to be looked upon as a
sort of bishop, as universal bishop of the eternal affairs of the
church. All this by no means from mere self-interest, but for the good
of the empire, which, now shaken to its foundations and threatened by
barbarians on every side, could only by some new bond of unity be
consolidated and upheld until at least the seeds of Christianity and
civilization should be planted among the barbarians themselves, the
representatives of the future. His personal policy thus coincided with
the interests of the state. Christianity appeared to him, as it proved
in fact, the only efficient power for a political reformation of the
empire, from which the ancient spirit of Rome was fast departing, while
internal civil and religious dissensions and the outward pressure of the
barbarians threatened a gradual dissolution of society.

But with the political he united also a religious motive