Another passage from H.A.L. Fisher (on whom, see here), this one regarding the Emperor Constantine and his legitimation of Christianity, which paved the way to its establishment as the Roman Empire’s official creed:
“Nobody would be bold enough to contend that this vigorous and capable soldier was a Christian character. If he did not actually, as is attested, throw German captives to the beasts, he certainly put to death his wife and his son. But in a violent age crimes of violence are lightly condoned, and the failings of Constantine were soon overshadowed by the great achievement which caused him to be regarded in the eastern Empire as a thirteenth apostle.”
A History of Europe, Volume 1, From the Earliest Times to 1713, p. 114
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