es of dead men in certain retired places,
and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished, by a dream, that
the body of some friend of God lay there. Many, especially of the monks,
travelled through the different provinces; and not only sold, with most
frontless impudence, their fictitious relics, but also deceived the eyes
of the multitude with ludicrous combats with evil spirits or genii. A
whole volume would be requisite to contain an enumeration of the various
frauds which artful knaves practised, with success, to delude the
ignorant, when true religion was almost entirely superseded by horrid
superstition" (p. 98). When to all these weapons we add the forgeries
everywhere circulated (see ante, pp. 240-243), we can understand how
rapidly Christianity spread, and how "the faithful" were rendered
pliable to those whose interests lay in deceiving them. During this
century flourished some of the greatest fathers of the Church,
pre-eminent among whom we note Ambrose, of Milan, Augustine, of Hippo,
and the great ecclesiastical doctor, Jerome. Already, in this century,
we find clear traces of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and "when a
new pontiff was to be elected by the suffrages of the presbyters and the
people, the city of Rome was generally agitated with dissensions,
tumults, and cabals, whose consequences were often deplorable and fatal"
(p. 94). By a decree of the Council of Constantinople, the bishop of
that city was given precedence next after the Roman prelate, and the
jealousy which arose between the bishops of the two imperial cities
fomented the disputes which ended, finally, in the separation of the
Eastern and Western Churches. Of the officers of the Church in this
century we read that: "The bishops, on the one hand, contended with each
other, in the most scandalous manner, concerning the extent of their
respective jurisdictions, while, on the other, they trampled upon the
rights of the people, violated the privileges of the inferior ministers,
and imitated, in their conduct, and in their manner of living, the
arrogance, voluptuousness, and luxury of magistrates and princes" (pp.
95, 96).

In this century is the first instance of the burning alive of a heretic,
and it was Spain who lighted that first pile. Theodosius, of all the
emperors of this age, was the bitterest persecutor of the heretic sects.
"The orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the
supreme powers of heaven and