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THE emperor had already divided the empire among his sons, who were
styled Caesars. To Constantine and Constans he awarded the western
regions; and to Constantius, the eastern; and as he was indisposed,
and required to have recourse to bathing, he repaired for that purpose
to Helenopolis, a city of Bithynia. His malady, however,
increased, and he went to Nicomedia, and was initiated into holy
baptism in one of the suburbs of that city. After the ceremony he was
filled with joy, and returned thanks to God. He then confirmed the
division of the empire among his sons, according to his former
allotment, and bestowed certain privileges on old Rome and on the city
named after himself. He placed his testament in the hands of the
presbyter who constantly extolled Arius, and who had been recommended
to him as a man of virtuous life by his sister Constantia in her last
moments, and commanded him with an added oath to deliver it to
Constantius on his return, for neither Constantius nor the other
Caesars were with their dying father. After making these
arrangements, Constantine survived but a few days; be died in the
sixty fifth year of his age, and the thirty first of his reign. He
was a powerful protector of the Christian religion, and was the first
of the emperors who began to be zealous for the Church, and to bestow
upon her high benefactions. He was more successful than any other
sovereign in all his undertakings; for he formed no design, I am
convinced, without God. He was victorious in his wars against the
Goths and Sarmatians, and, indeed, in all his military
enterprises; and he changed the form of government according to his own
mind with so much ease, that he created another senate and another
imperial city, to which he gave his own name. He assailed the pagan
religion, and in a little while subverted it, although it had
prevailed for ages among the princes and the people.
After the death of Constantine, his body was placed in a golden
coffin, conveyed to Constantinople, and deposited on a certain
platform in the palace; the same honor and ceremonial were observed,
by those who were in the palace, as were accorded to him while living.
On hearing of his father's death, Constantius, who was then in the
East, hastened to Constantinople, and interred the royal remains
with the utmost magnificence, and deposited them in the tomb which had
been constructed by order of the deceased in the Church of the
Apostles. From this period it became the custom to deposit the
remains of subsequent Christian emperors in the same place of
interment; and here bishops, likewise, were buried, for the
hierarchical dignity is not only equal in honor to imperial power,
but, in sacred places, even takes the ascendancy.
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