superseded the necessity of any future prohibitions.
"It is our pleasure, that in all places, and in all cities, the temples
be immediately shut, and carefully guarded, that none may have the power
of offending. It is likewise our pleasure, that all our subjects should
abstain from sacrifices. If any one should be guilty of such an act,
let him feel the sword of vengeance, and after his execution, let
his property be confiscated to the public use. We denounce the same
penalties against the governors of the provinces, if they neglect
to punish the criminals." [170] But there is the strongest reason to
believe, that this formidable edict was either composed without being
published, or was published without being executed. The evidence of
facts, and the monuments which are still extant of brass and marble,
continue to prove the public exercise of the Pagan worship during the
whole reign of the sons of Constantine. In the East, as well as in the
West, in cities, as well as in the country, a great number of temples
were respected, or at least were spared; and the devout multitude still
enjoyed the luxury of sacrifices, of festivals, and of processions, by
the permission, or by the connivance, of the civil government. About
four years after the supposed date of this bloody edict, Constantius
visited the temples of Rome; and the decency of his behavior is
recommended by a pagan orator as an example worthy of the imitation
of succeeding princes. "That emperor," says Symmachus, "suffered the
privileges of the vestal virgins to remain inviolate; he bestowed
the sacerdotal dignities on the nobles of Rome, granted the customary
allowance to defray the expenses of the public rites and sacrifices;
and, though he had embraced a different religion, he never attempted to
deprive the empire of the sacred worship of antiquity." [171] The senate
still presumed to consecrate, by solemn decrees, the divine memory of
their sovereigns; and Constantine himself was associated, after his
death, to those gods whom he had renounced and insulted during his life.
The title, the ensigns, the prerogatives, of sovereign pontiff, which
had been instituted by Numa, and assumed by Augustus, were accepted,
without hesitation, by seven Christian emperors; who were invested with
a more absolute authority over the religion which they had deserted,
than over that which they professed. [172]

[Footnote 168: Ammianus (xxii. 4) speaks of some court eunuchs who wer