The Faith Advances under Constantine’s Sons

Those who presided over the churches at this time were noted for their personal conduct, and, as might be expected, the people they governed were earnestly devoted to the worship of Christ. Religion advanced day by day through the zeal, the virtue and the wonderful works of the priests and of the philosophers of the church, who drew the attention of the pagans and led them to give up their superstitions. The emperors then on the throne were as zealous as their father had been in protecting the churches, and they granted honors and exemptions from taxes to the clergy, to their children, and to their slaves. They confirmed the laws their father had made, and they enforced new ones forbidding the offering of sacrifice, the worship of images, and every other pagan observance. They commanded that all the temples, whether in the cities or in the country, be closed. Some of these temples were given to the churches, when either the ground they stood on or their building materials were needed. The greatest possible care was given to the houses of prayer. Those that had been damaged by time were repaired, and others were built from the foundations in a style of extraordinary magnificence. The church of Emesa is one of the most worth seeing, and it is famous for its beauty. [a]

The Jews were strictly forbidden to buy a slave belonging to any other sect than their own. If they broke this law, the slave was taken over by the state; but if they gave him the Jewish rite of circumcision, the penalties were death and the confiscation of all their property. For since the emperors wished to promote the spread of Christianity by every means, they thought it necessary to keep the Jews from making converts of those whose ancestors were of another religion; and those who held some hope of becoming Christians were carefully kept for the church. For it was from the pagan masses that the Christian religion grew.