Flavia Maxima Fausta

Rome, moreover, had tragic associations for him.

It was there that he had caused his young son, Crispus, falsely accused of treason by his stepmother, Fausta, to be put to death.

The young Caesar had been brave and upright and a favorite with all.

Too late did his father learn that he was innocent.

With Constantine, however, Maximian had better success.

He gave him his daughter Fausta in marriage and incited him to attack Galerius, who at once drew his troops off into Illyria, after laying waste to the Transpadani region with fire and sword.

Some very curious stories are told in connection with this expedition of Galerius.

Lactantius declares that he invaded Italy with the intention of extinguishing the Senate and butchering the people of Rome, that he found the gates of all the cities shut against him, and discovered that he had not brought sufficient troops with him to attempt a siege of the capital.

The circumstances attending it are in doubt.

Lactantius gives a minute narrative which would carry greater conviction if the details had not been so manifestly borrowed from the chronicles of the East.

He says that Maximian, tiring of his humiliating position, engaged in new plots against Constantine, and tempted Fausta, his daughter, to betray her husband by the promise of a worthier spouse.

Her part in the conspiracy was to secure the removal of the guards from Constantine's sleeping apartment.

the king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.

The emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into power, murdered his wife Fausta and his eldest son Crispus, the same year that he convened the Council of Nice to decide whether Jesus Christ was a man or the Son of God.

The Council decided that Christ was consubstantial with the Father.

This was in the year 325.

We are thus indebted to a wife murderer for settling the vexed question of the divinity of the Savior.

Theodosius called a council at Constantinople in 381. and this council decided that the holy ghost proceeded from the father theodosius the younger assembled another council at ephesus to ascertain who the virgin mary really was and it was solemnly decided in the year 431 that she was the mother of god in 451 it was decided by a council held at chalcedon called together by the emperor marcian that christ had two natures the human and divine in 680 in another general council held at constantinople convened by order of pognatius it was also decided that christ had two wills and in the year twelve seventy four it was decided at the council of lyons that the holy ghost proceeded not only from the father but from the son as well had it not been for these councils we might have been without a trinity even unto this day when we take into consideration the fact that a belief in the trinity is absolutely essential to salvation how unfortunate it was for the world that this doctrine was not established until the year twelve seventy four think of the millions that dropped into hell while these questions were being discussed this however is a digression let us go back to constantine this emperor stained with every crime is supposed to have died like a christian we hear nothing of fiends leering at him in the shadows of death He does not see the forms of his murdered wife and son covered with the blood he shed.

From his white and shriveled lips issued no shrieks of terror.

He does not cover his glazed eyes with thin and trembling hands to shut out the visions of hell.