Chapter XLII.--The Honors Conferred upon Bishops, and the Building of Churches.
The emperor also personally inviting the society of God's ministers, distinguished them with the highest possible respect and honor, showing them favor in deed and word as persons consecrated to the service of his God. Accordingly, they were admitted to his table, though mean in their attire and outward appearance; yet not so in his estimation, since he thought he saw not the man as seen by the vulgar eye, but the God in him. He made them also his companions in travel, believing that He whose servants they were would thus help him. Besides this, he gave from his own private resources costly benefactions to the churches of God, both enlarging and heightening the sacred edifices, 1 and embellishing the august sanctuaries 2 of the church with abundant offerings.
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"Oratories," or chapels. ↩
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Variously rendered, but seems to say that the smaller buildings were enlarged and the larger ones enriched. The number of buildings which Constantine is claimed to have erected in Rome alone is prodigious. One meets at every turn in the modern city churches which were, it is said, founded or remodeled by him. For interesting monograph which claims to have established the Constantinian foundation of many of these, see Ciampini in Prolegomena, under Literature. ↩
