ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

the first efforts at reform had their foundation. The latter half of the 16th c. was a period of new life in the Roman Church. The celebration of local synods, the establishment of episcopal seminaries. the organisation of schools, and other provision for religious instruction, above all, the foundation of religious orders of both sexes, in all which this active work of the church was one of the striking and prominent characteristics, had the effect of arresting in many countries the progress of Protestantism, at first rapid and decisive; and Lord Macaulay has traced out with curious minuteness the line which marks in the several countries the origin and the progress of this religious reaction.

From the end of the 16th c., therefore, the position of the R. C. Church, especially in her external relations, may be regarded as settled. The local distribution of the rival churches in the world has not been materially altered since that time. But in her relation to the state, the Roman Church has since passed through a long and critical struggle, which is detailed under the heads GALLICAN CHURCH, FEBRONIANISM, INNOCENT XI. The new theories to which the French Revolution gave currency have still further modified these relations; but in most of the European kingdoms they have been regulated either by concordat or by some similar mutual agreement. Many conflicting claims, however, on either side still exist; but the policy of the R. C. Church in the conflict with the state has generally been to record her protest against any violation of right, but the protest having been made, to submit under protest, unless in what are considered the essentials of faith or of discipline.

the Arian, the Nestorian, the Eutychian, the about, by the natural process of self-purification, Monothelite-not only was her orthodoxy never those ameliorations in the struggle towards which impeached, but, on the contrary, she even supplied at every crisis a rallying point for the orthodox of every church and of every country. It was so, again, in the Iconoclast controversy; and although Constantinople more than once, in the time of Gregory the Great, and still more in that of Nicholas I., renewed the struggle for supremacy, or even equality, the position of Rome continued to be recognised. The separation of the Greek Church and her dependencies, under the patriarch Michael Cerularius in the year 1054, was but the withdrawal of a certain space from the extent of her territorial jurisdiction. If it had any effect upon her position within that portion of the church which remained faithful, it was rather to enhance the dignity of Rome, and to widen her prerogatives. The abandonment of Italy by the emperors to its fate under the invasion of the barbarians, led to the establishment of the temporal sovereignty of the popes. The total disruption of the Western Empire, and the consequent social disorganisation of Europe, combined with the spiritual authority of the Roman bishop to bring about the general recognition of his authority throughout the kingdoms of Europe as an arbiter in the temporal relations of sovereigns with their subjects, and of sovereigns towards each other. This extraordinary temporal authority was at once the consequence of his acknowledged spiritual power, and tended to heighten and to consolidate the very power in which it had its origin; and even it had its origin; and even Protestants must recognise the Roman Church of the medieval period as absorbing in itself almost the whole of European Christendom, and as the only public (even though they believe it degenerate and corrupt) representative of the church in the West. The details of the doctrinal system of the R. C. The temporary withdrawal of the papal residence Church may be best explained from her latest from Rome to Avignon brought with it, from various authentic creed, that commonly called of Pius V., causes, not the least of which was the weakening drawn up as a summary of all the authoritative of the prestige of the 'see of Peter,' a notable dimi- teaching up to that time, including the decrees of nution of the at least temporal power of the popes, the Council of Trent. It is only necessary to which was still further weakened by the long western premise that, while in the view of Catholics (see schism, by the conflicts of the rival pontiffs, and RULE OF FAITH) the doctrine must be based on the scandals which arose therefrom; and the origin the Word of God, written or unwritten, the church and progress of the modern political institutions is the only authoritative judge of that Rule of which then began to break upon the world, so Faith. The tribunals which are held to represent modified the public relations of church and state, this teaching, as well as the subjects to which the as by degrees to undo the condition of society in privilege extends, and the limits within which it which the temporal power had its foundation. The is held to be exercised infallibly, have all been great revolution of the 16th c. completed the pro- explained under the head INFALLIBILITY (q. v.). and when the popes seriously addressed But Catholics hold, that while the church has themselves to the defence of the doctrinal system, authority, when doubts or difficulties arise, to prowhich was the foundation of their authority, it was pound authoritatively new definitions of faith, no longer in the character of arbiters of the tem- nevertheless these new definitions must not be poral destinies of the world, but of simple disput-regarded as additions to the original faith of the ants in the arena of theological science, in which church, or to the original deposit of divine teaching, their adversaries could could command equally with but only as expositions of former articles, or at themselves the means of appealing to the intelligence and to the religious sympathies of men.

cess;

Nor was the revolution with which the popes thas found themselves face to face without its influence in the external history of the Roman Church. The defections consequent on the Reformation, and at first numerous and formidable, received a check. The great Council of Trent-one of the necessities of self-defence which the rude assault of the Reformers entailed-did more to systematise, to define, and to present in popular form the doctrinal belief of Rome, than had been accomplished by the united efforts of the schoolmen of the three centuries which preceded the Reformation; while the decrees of Reformation which it enacted, and still more the schemes of local and individual reform which it originated, and to which it gave the impulse as well as the example, tended to bring

most as developments of what already existed in the germ, and has but been evolved by controversy, or brought into practical action by the progress of time, and the change of the external relations of the church. The creed of Pius V. is as follows:

'I, N. N., with a firm faith believe and profess all and every one of those things which are contained in that creed which the holy Roman Church maketh use of. To wit: I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages; God of God; Light of Light; true God of the true God; begotten, not made; consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and

ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.

I most steadfastly admit and embrace the apos- The details of the discipline of the R. C. Church tolical and ecclesiastical traditions, and all other would be out of place here. But it may be observed observances and constitutions of the same church. that the R. C. Church leans towards asceticism, 'I also admit the holy Scriptures, according to as regards the practice of fasting, with less rigour that sense which our holy mother the Church hath than the Greek and oriental communions; while on held and doth hold; to whom it belongeth to judge the contrary, as to the celibacy of the Clergy (q. v.), of the true sense and interpretation of the Scrip- her law is much more stringent; all the clergy of tures; neither will I ever take and interpret them the R. C. Church in the greater orders, including otherwise than according to the unanimous consent sub-deacons, being so strictly bound to celibacy, of the Fathers.

ROMAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION-ROMAN CEMENT.

Rome, see GREEK CHURCH, RUSSIAN CHURCH, SYRIA,
MARONITES.

In 1780, Grattan carried his resolution that the king and parliament of Ireland could alone make ROMAN CATHOLIC EMANCIPATION OR laws that would bind the Irish, and separation from RELIEF ACTS. After the Reformation, both in England was urged as the alternative with repeal of England and in Scotland, R. Catholics were sub- the disqualifying statutes. The agitation culminated jected to many penal regulations and restrictions. in the Irish rebellion of 1798; the union of 1800 As late as 1780, the law of England-which, how- followed, which was partly carried by means of ever, was not always rigidly enforced-made it pledges, not redeemed, regarding the removal of felony in a foreign R. Catholic priest, and high the disabilities in question. Meantime, in England, treason in one who was a native of the kingdom R. Catholics continued subject to many minor to teach the doctrines or perform divine service disabilities, which the above-mentioned acts failed according to the rites of his church. R. Catholics to remove. They were excluded from sitting and were debarred from acquiring land by purchase. voting in parliament, and from enjoying numer Persons educated abroad in the R. Catholic faith ous offices, franchises, and civil rights, by the were declared incapable of succeeding to real requirement of signing the declaration against property, and their estates were forfeited to the next transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, and the Protestant heir. A son or other nearest relation sacrifice of the mass. In the early part of this being a Protestant, was empowered to take posses- century, many measures were proposed for the sion of the estate of his R. Catholic father or other removal of these disqualifications, and in 1813 and kinsman during his life. A R. Catholic was dis- succeeding years, one bill for this end after another qualified from undertaking the guardianship even was thrown out. Meanwhile, the agitation on of R. Catholic children. R. Catholics were excluded the subject among the R. Catholics themselves from the legal profession, and it was presumed that greatly increased, and in 1824 it assumed an organa Protestant lawyer who married a R. Catholic had ised shape by the formation of the R. Catholic adopted the faith of his wife. It was a capital Association' in Ireland, with its systematic coloffence for a R. Catholic priest to celebrate a mar-lections for the Catholic rent.' The Duke of riage between a Protestant and R. Catholic. Such Wellington, who, for a long time, felt great repug was the state of the law, not only in England but nance to admit the R. Catholic claims, was at in Ireland, where the large majority of the popu- last brought to the conviction, that the security of lation adhered to the old faith. In Scotland, the empire would be imperilled by further resisting also, R. Catholics were prohibited from purchasing them, and in 1829 a measure was introduced by the or taking by succession landed property. The in- duke's ministry for Catholic emancipation. An act expediency and irrationality of imposing fetters of having been first passed for the suppression of this description on persons not suspected of dis- the R. Catholic Association-which had already loyalty, and from whom danger was own dissolution-the celebrated R. no longer voted its apprehended, began about 1778 to occupy the Catholic Relief Bill was introduced by Mr Peel in attention of liberal-minded statesmen; and in 1780, the House of Commons on the 5th of March, and Sir George Saville introduced a bill for the repeal after passing both Houses, received the royal assent of some of the most severe disqualifications in the on the 13th April. By this act (10 Geo. IV. c. case of such R. Catholics as would submit to an oath is substituted for the oaths of allegiance, a proposed test. This test included an oath of supremacy, and abjuration, on taking which R allegiance to the sovereign, and abjuration of the Pretender, a declaration of disbelief in the several doctrines, that it is lawful to put individuals to death on pretence of their being heretics; that no faith is to be kept with heretics; that princes excommunicated may be deposed or put to death; and that the pope is entitled to any temporal jurisdiction within the realm. The bill, from the operation of which Scotland was exempted, eventually passed into law. An attempt which had been made at of corporations, they cannot vote in the disposal of the same time to obtain a like measure of relief for church property or patronage. Ecclesiastics or other the R. Catholics of Scotland, was defeated by an members of the R. Catholic persuasion, either outburst of religious fanaticism. The populace of wearing the habit of their order, or officiating in any Edinburgh, stirred up by a body called The Com- place which is not their usual place of worship, or mittee for the Protestant Interest,' attacked and set a private house, forfeit £50. Jesuits, and members fire to the R. Catholic churches, and the houses of orders bound by monastic or religious vows, must of the clergy and of such persons as were sus- register themselves with the clerk of the peace of pected to be favourable to R. Catholic relief. The their county, under a penalty of £50 for every frenzy spread to England, where a 'Protestant month that they remain in the kingdom unregisAssociation' had been formed to oppose the reso- tered. Jesuits not natural-born subjects, who have lutions of the legislature. See GORDON, LORD come into the country since the passing of the act, GEORGE. In 1791, a bill was passed affording are liable to be banished. Persons admitting others further relief to such R. Catholics as would sign a protest against the temporal power of the pope, and his authority to release from civil obligations; and in the following year, by the statute 33 Geo. III. c. 44, the most highly penal of the restrictions bearing on the Scottish R. Catholics were removed without opposition, a form of oath and declaration being prescribed, on taking which they could freely purchase or inherit landed property.

Endeavours were made at the same time by the Irish parliament to get rid of the more important disqualifications, and place Ireland on an equality in point of religious freedom with England.

7),

Catholics may sit or vote in either House of Parliament, and be admitted to most other offices from which they were before excluded. They, however, continue to be excluded from the offices of Guardian and Justice or Regent of the United Kingdom, Lord Chancellor, Lord Keeper, or Lord Commissioner of the Great Seal of Great Britain or Ireland, and Lord High Commissioner to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.

As members

to such societies within the United Kingdom, are liable to fine and imprisonment, and those who have been so admitted are liable to be banished.

Restrictions which existed on R. Catholic bequests were removed by 2 and 3 Will. IV. c. 115, as regards Great Britain, and by 7 and 8 Vict. c. 60, with relation to Ireland. Acts 7 and 8 Vict. c. 102, and 9 and 10 Vict. c. 59, abolished a few minor R. Catholic disabilities. For the statutory prohi bition against the assumption of ecclesiastical titles in respect of places in the United Kingdom, see ECCLESIASTICAL TITLES ASSUMPTION ACT.

ROMAN CEMENT. See CEMENTS.

ROMAN RELIGION.

ROMAN RELIGION, ANCIENT, a conglomera- Minerva (q. v.). The stars also had three foremost tion of the most widely-different theological or representatives-Sol, the sun, Luna, the moon, and rather mythological elements, introduced by the Tellus, the earth. The supreme deities of the various strata of immigrations that flowed into the Infernal Regions were Orcus, Dis (Dives, Consus ?), different parts of Italy at different pre-historic and his wife, the Queen of the Empire of the times. It was chiefly under Greek influence that it Shadows, Libitina. The element of the water was assumed that most characteristic and systematic presided over by Neptune (q. v.); that of the fire by form, under which it was known during the clas- | Vulcan (q. v.), the god of the smithies, and Vesta, the sical times of Rome, and as which it generally repre- goddess of the domestic hearth and its pure flame. sents itself to our minds. Numa Pompilius (q. v.), Agriculture and rearing cattle were sacred to the that mythic successor of Romulus, is by the primi- ancient Latin king Saturnus, whose wife, Ops-the tive legend mentioned as the founder of the Roman riches therefrom accruing-had, like Demeter, her religion, or rather ceremonial law. He is probably seat in the soil. Ceres, Liber, and Libera, the the type of the period when the religious notions three Greek deities of agricultural pursuits, were of the Sabines were first joined to the primitive superadded about 500 B. C. Pales, the special proelements of legendary belief of the early settlers. tector of the flocks, and his festival (the Palilia) Among the vast number of the different and obscure were celebrated on the foundation-day of Rome. component elements, the Pelasgian, Sabellian, Oscan, Mars himself was the supreme deity of the Romans Gallic, &c., out of which grew the recognised state next to Jupiter. Deities of Oracles are Faunus, religion, we can, with a comparative amount of a deified king, who gave his obscure decisions clearness, distinguish chiefly three-the Etruscan, either in dreams or in strange voices, and his the Sabine, and the Latin. The religion of the female relative-wife, daughter, or sister-Fauna Etruscans as distinct from the Pelasgians (q. v.) (Bona Dea), who attends only to the female sex; -has been characterised in our article on that and the Camenæ, prophesying nymphs, of whose nation. Of the gods of the Latins, many are closely number was Egeria, Numa Pompilius's inspirer. related to those of the Greeks (see GREEK RELI- The Apollo worship was but of late growth in GION), à circumstance easily accounted for by their Rome. The Parcæ represented the unchangeable common eastern origin (see ROME, HISTORY OF); fate of the individual. Fortuna was, on the conothers, however, seem indigenous. Their principal trary, the uncertain chance of destiny, the 'luck deities are Tellus (q. v.) (the earth) Saturn (q. v.) to be invoked at all important junctures. Salus, (god of seeds), and his wife Ops (goddess of earth Pax, Concordia, Libertas, Felicitas, Pietas, Virtus, and plenty), who are somewhat akin to Kronos and Honos, Spes, and a host of other abstract notions, Rhea; Jupiter (q. v.), with Juno (q. v.), givers of explain themselves. Venus first became importlight. Deities more peculiar to the Latins are Janus ant when identified with Aphrodite; in the same (q. v.), and Diana (q. v.). Faunus and Fauna are pro-way as Amor, Cupido, and Voluptas were Greek phesying wood-deities, and were allied to Lupercus, in whose honour the Lupercalia (q. v.) were cele brated; Picus and Pilumnus, who preside in some way over agriculture and the fruits of the field; Vesta (q. v.); Fortuna (q. v.); Ferentina, the goddess of leagues. A certain number of agrarian deities' mediators,' but addressed their (Anna Perenna, Venus, &c.) make up, with those mentioned, the bulk of 'native' Latin numina. Of chiefly Sabine deities, we name Feronia, the Ferentina of the Latins, a goddess of the soil, who was worshipped with gifts of flowers and fruits; and the two war-gods, Mars and Quirinus-the former a deity at first worshipped under the symbol of shield and spear, and of high importance for colonisations, to whom every animal and every human being born in a certain year was sacred; the former being doomed to be sacrificed, and the latter at the age of twenty to emigrate, and to found new settlements: Quirinus, a deity of strife, closely connected with the myth of Romulus. Sabine deities were also Sol, the sun, Luna, the moon, &c.

Having thus traced some of the principal gods and goddesses (of the greater part of whom fuller information will be found in special articles in the course of this work) to the respective nationality that first introduced them into Italy, we shall now take a brief glance at the Roman Pantheon as it appeared when it had embodied systematically these acclimatised primeval idealisations. For it primeval_idealisations. was as characteristic of the Roman gods to appear in sets, as it was for the more personal gods of the Hellenes to appear singly. The Romans, as it were, made them fall rationally into rank and file, each with a distinct mission of its own, and thus filled with them, as with authorities over special departnients, the whole visible and invisible world-above, below, and around. The first rank of all is taken by the three Capitoline deities, the personifications of highest power, highest womanliness, and highest wisdom--Jupiter (q. v.); Juno (q. v.), the Queen of Heaven, and the tutelary deity of women; and,

importations, brought into prominence by the poets chiefly. Life, death, and life after death are made concrete, by the Genii, the Lares, Manes, and Penates. See LARES.

Like the Greeks, the early Romans had no 'mediators,' but addressed their prayers and supplications directly to the individual god. The priesthood, we find, in the classical period, had arisen originally from the 'kindlers (flamines) of Mars,' or those who presented burnt-offerings to the early Italian war-god Mars, and the twelve dancers (Salii) who in March performed war-dances in his honour. To these came the Field Brethren,' the 'Wolf-repellers,' &c.; and thus by degrees an endless and most powerful hierarchy came to be built up. By the side of it, but not identical with it, were certain sacred colleges, who kept the sacred traditions alive, and who were the supreme authority on religious observances. These were the colleges of Pontifices (q. v.) or Bridge-builders, of Augurs (see AUGURIES and AUSPICES), the keepers of the Sibylline Books (see SIBYL); the twenty Fetiales or state heralds, the supreme-advising, not executing-authorities on international law; the Vestal virgins, on whom devolved the guardianship of the Palladium and of the sacred fire; the Salii (see above), and others. Priests, in the stricter sense of the word, in the service of special deities, were the Flamens (q. v.); while the Dea Dia, the goddess of fields (Tellus, Ceres, Ops, Flora), had the special brotherhood of the twelve Arvalian brothers, with their numerous followers. The state sacrifice, before the expulsion of the mythical kings supposed to have been offered up by these, was offered by a special Rex Sacrorum or Rex Sacrificulus.

The mode of worship was analogous to that of the Greeks. Votive offerings, prayers, vows, sacrifices, libations, purifications, banquets, lays, songs, dances, and games made up the sum of their divine service. The sacred places were either fana, delubra—mere hallowed spots on hills and in groves-or templa,

ROMAN RELIGION.

abstract and general. The Greeks could only worship allegories; the Romans, abstractions. Hence, also, to the whole Indo-Germanic stock, the unmarried and childless state of their gods, who, moreover, wanted no food, and did not wander about among men, as did the Indian and the Hellenic. As in the late Midrash, which has partly found its way into Christianity, there is a heavenly Jerusalem right over the earthly Jerusalem, in which all things below were reproduced in an exact but most ideal and divine manner. Thus, the Roman Pantheon was the precise counterpart of the Roman world as it existed in reality. Every man, and thing, and event, and act had a corresponding tutelary deity, that came and went with the special individual, phenomenon, or event, and eternal gods were those only that represented certain great unchanging laws of nature. The angels of the legendary lore of later Judaism and early Christianity, that protect special nations, were with the Romans the gods of these nations, and entered, as their special numina, the divine commonwealth of the Romans simultaneously with the admission of these nations into their own pale or freedom.

ædes, special buildings dedicated to a special deity. The latter contained two altars-the ara, for libations and oblations; and the altare, for burnt- their utter discarding of many of the myths common offerings chiefly. Frugality, as it pervaded, in the classical period, the domestic life, so it also prevented all extravagance of offerings to the deity, and all excess of rejoicing before it. Sober and dull, as the Roman religion undoubtedly was-for it never once expanded into the joyful extravagances of fancy with which the Greek religion was religion was fraught throughout-it at the same time kept free from the abominations that are the natural offspring of that unbounded sway of fancy. Human sacrifices, as far as they are to be met with, grew out of the idea of substitution, and were chiefly enthusiastic voluntary acts of men who threw them selves into the breach; or they carried out decrees of civil tribunals, who had convicted the 'victim' of a deadly offence. In their dealings with the gods, the Romans were pure merchants, carrying out their promises with strict literalness, and thus often fraudulently, against the patent inner meaning of their promise; but the gods were not to them the all-pervading essences, but rather creditors, strict and powerful, yet unable to exact more than was agreed upon outwardly.

A code of moral and ethical rules, furthering and preserving civil order, and the pious relations within the state and family, were the palpable results of this religion, which, in its barrenness of metaphysical notions, did next to nothing for the furtherance of art.

And here we must enter somewhat more fully into that peculiar phenomenon of the utter dissimilarity in the characters of the Greek and Roman religion, at which we have hinted already-a dissimilarity all the more surprising, as the selfsame symbolical and allegorical views of nature, filtered through however different channels, form the foundation of both. Both also-especially in their later stages offer a general analogy not only of deities and spirits, but even of holy places and their mode of worship. But the fact is, that they each took the original common stock of notions and conceptions, clad more or less in mythical garb, and utterly transformed it, superadding to it from time to time according to their own distinct nationality. It is here, however, that their characteristic traits come out in as forcible a contrast as they do in every other relation of life, in their art and culture, in their states and families. While to the Hellenes the individual was the chief end of all things, and the state existed for the citizen, and the ideal was the Kalokagathia, the beautiful, good, the Romans imposed, as the highest duty, submission to authority -the son to the father, the citizen to the ruler, and all to the gods. To them, only that which was useful appeared good. Idleness was not to be tolerated in a community where every single member only existed as far as it contributed to the greatness and aggrandisement of the commonwealth. Hence, with them, a rational thoughtfulness, and a grand and awful austerity in their relations to men and gods; while the Greeks treated both with joyful serenity. The Greek invested his gods with human attributes, and then surrounded them with a halo of highest splendour and most glorious divine beauty; but he constantly modelled and remodelled them, until they reached the acme of beautiful perfection, as would the painter and the sculptor with their work. The Roman, on the other hand, cared nothing for the outward form of his idealised notions-the notions themselves, mere fundamental ideas, were his sole object of veneration. The Greeks made everything concrete, corporeal, and individual; the Romans,

As long as the grand old Roman simplicity of manners, the frugality of domestic life, the indefatigable pursuit of agriculture, trade, and commerce lasted-and all of these were well characterised by the deep reverence paid to gods (albeit not in the highest scale of divine order), who presided over the house, the field, the forest, mercantile enterprise, and the like, Vesta, the Penates, the Silvani, the Lares or Lases, Hercules or Herculus (a native Italian deity, the god of the enclosed homestead [compare Jupiter herceus] apparently distinct from the Greek Heracles) as the god of property and gain, whose altar, as god of faith (Deus fidius), was as frequently to be met with as those of the goddess of chance (Fors, Fortuna), and the god of traffic (Mercury)—so long did Roman religion, properly so called, retain its firm hold over the people's minds, and its influence cannot well be overrated. But when the antique austerity, the olden spirit of grand independence, the unceasing hard work that steeled body and soul, had given way to the lazy, luxurious case of later times then Roman religion ceased to exist in reality, and over its ruins rose a mad jumble of unbelief, Hellenism, sectarianism, and oriental creeds. The ancient religio, the binding faith, which had excited the admiration and astonishment of the Greeks, had waned, and in proportion with the unbelief rose the pomp, and stateliness, and luxury of public worship. To the hierarchy of augurs, oracle-keepers, and pontifices were superadded special banquet-masters for the divine banquets. The priests more and more freed themselves from taxes and other public burdens, and the custom of perpetual endowments for religious objects crept in, as their influence waxed stronger and stronger. Pious services' became as much an item of domestic expenditure as the cook's and nurse's wages. Penny collections for the 'mother of God' were gathered on certain fixed days by the sound of fife and drum played by priests in oriental garb, headed by a eunuch, from house to house, and the whole substance of Roman faith was transformed into an unwieldy mass of dark, grovelling mysticism and shameless profligacy, presided. over by wretched gangs of uneducated and unprincipled priests. How this state of things favoured the gradual introduction of Judaism and Christianity into the dying days of imperial Rome, has been briefly sketched in GNOSTICS (q. v.). Constantine the Great abolished the last outward trace of Roman religion by proclaiming Christianity as the state religion. For the greater