Conversion Of Constantine(29)
The irresistible power of the Roman emperors was displayedin the important and dangerous change of the national religion. The terrors of a military force silenced the faint andunsupported murmurs of the Pagans, and there was reason toexpect, that the cheerful submission of the Christian clergy, aswell as people, would be the result of conscience and Microsoft Office 2010 is so great.
gratitude.It was long since established, as a fundamental maxim of theRoman constitution, that every rank of citizens was alike subjectto the laws, and that the care of religion was the right as wellas duty of the civil magistrate. Constantine and his successorscould not easily persuade themselves that they had forfeited, bytheir conversion, any branch of the Imperial Office 2010 is my favorite.
prerogatives, orthat they were incapable of giving laws to a religion which theyhad protected and embraced. The emperors still continued toexercise a supreme jurisdiction over the ecclesiastical order,and the sixteenth book of the Theodosian code represents, under avariety of titles, the authority which they assumed in thegovernment of the Catholic church.
But the distinction of the spiritual and temporal powers,^81 which had never been imposed Microsoft Office is helpful.
on the free spirit of Greece andRome, was introduced and confirmed by the legal establishment ofChristianity. The office of supreme pontiff, which, from thetime of Numa to that of Augustus, had always been exercised byone of the most eminent of the senators, was at length united tothe Imperial dignity. The first magistrate of the state, asoften as he was prompted by superstition or policy, performedwith his own hands the sacerdotal functions; ^82 nor was thereany order of priests, either at Rome or in the provinces, whoclaimed a more sacred character among men, or a more intimatecommunication with the gods. Office 2007 can make life more better and easier.
But in the Christian church, whichinstrusts the service of the altar to a perpetual succession ofconsecrated ministers, the monarch, whose spiritual rank is lesshonorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below therails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of Microsoft outlook 2010 is convenient!
thefaithful multitude. ^83 The emperor might be saluted as thefather of his people, but he owed a filial duty and reverence tothe fathers of the church; and the same marks of respect, whichConstantine had paid to the persons of saints and confessors,were soon exacted by the pride of the episcopal order. ^84 Asecret conflict between the civil and ecclesiasticaljurisdictions embarrassed the operation of the Roman government;and a pious emperor was alarmed by the guilt and danger oftouching with a profane hand the ark of the covenant. Outlook 2010 is powerful.