them into a packet, to which he affixed his seal, and put them aside. After a reconciliation had been effected, he brought out these writings and burnt them in their presence, at the same time declaring, upon oath, that he had not even read them. He said that the crimes of priests ought not to be made known to the multitude, lest they should become an occasion of offence or of sin. He also said, that if he had detected a bishop in the very act of committing adultery, he would have thrown his imperial robe over the unlawful deed, lest any should witness the scene, and be thereby injured.[1]
THE VICENNALIA.—COSTANTINE INVITES THE BISHOPS TO A GREAT FEAST.—HE ADMONISHES THEM TO BE UNANIMOUS AND DILIGENT.—PRESENTS GIFTS TO THEM, AND BIDS THEM ALL FAREWELL.
"At the very time that these decrees were passed by the Council," says Sozomen, "the twentieth anniversary of the reign of Constantine was celebrated; for it was a Roman custom to have a feast on each tenth year of every reign.[2]
- ↑ Theodoret's Ecclesiastical History.
- ↑ Pamphilus says: "When the emperor held the banquet with the bishops, among whom he had established peace, he presented it, through them, as it were, an offering worthy of God. No one of the bishops was excluded from the imperial table. The proceedings on this occasion were sublime beyond description. The soldiers of the emperor's body-guard were drawn up before the door of the palace with their bare swords. The men of God (the bishops) passed along undaunted between their files into the interior of the palace. Some sat at the same table with the emperor himself; the others at side tables. One might easily imagine that one beheld the type of Christ's kingdom."—Life of Constantine, book iii. chap. 15.
At the festival, Eusebius Pamphilus, himself pronounced an oration and panegyric upon the emperor, in his most florid style.
It was, doubtless, now about the twenty-fifth day of July,
