remony, he
promised to live thenceforth worthily of a disciple of Jesus; refused to
wear again the imperial mantle of cunningly woven silk, richly
ornamented with gold; retained the white baptismal robe; and died a few
days after, on Pentecost, May 32, 337, trusting in the mercy of God, and
leaving a long, a fortunate, and a brilliant reign, such as none but
Augustus, of all his predecessors, had enjoyed. 'So passed away the
first Christian emperor, the first defender of the faith, the first
imperial patron of the papal see, and of the whole Eastern Church, the
first founder of the holy places, pagan and Christian, orthodox and
heretical, liberal and fanatical, not to be imitated or admired, but
much to be remembered, and deeply to be studied.'

His remains were removed in a golden coffin by a procession of
distinguished civilians and the whole army, from Nicomedia to
Constantinople, and deposited, with the highest Christian honors, in the
Church of the Apostles, while the Roman senate, after its ancient
custom, proudly ignoring the great religious revolution of the age,
enrolled him among the gods of the heathen Olympus. Soon after his
death, Eusebius set him above the greatest princes of all times; from
the fifth century he began to be recognized in the East as a saint; and
the Greek and Russian Church to this day celebrates his memory under the
extravagant title of _Isapostolos_, the 'Equal of the Apostles.' The
Latin Church, on the contrary, with truer tact, has never placed him
among the saints, but has been content with naming him 'the Great,' in
just and grateful remembrance of his services to the cause of
Christianity and civilization.

Constantine marks the beginning of the downfall of ancient and classical
paganism. Still it dragged out a sickly old age for about two hundred
years longer, until at last it died of incurable consumption, without
the hope of a resurrection.

The final dissolution of heathenism in the Eastern empire may be dated
from the middle of the fifth century. In the year 435, Theodosius II.
commanded the temples to be destroyed or turned into churches. There
still appear some heathens in civil office and at court so late as the
beginning of the reign of Justinian I. (527-567). But this despotic
emperor prohibited heathenism as a form of worship in the empire on pain
of death, and in 529 abolished the last intellectual seminary of it, the
philosophical school of Athens, which had stood ni