ent position once
attained, none stood more in need of the appearance of wisdom. Under
such circumstances, they were tempted to set up their own notions as
final and unimpeachable truth, and to denounce as magic, or the sinful
pursuit of vain trifling, all the learning that stood in the way. In
this the hand of the civil power assisted. It was intended to cut off
every philosopher. Every manuscript that could be seized was forthwith
burned. Throughout the East, men in terror destroyed their libraries,
for fear that some unfortunate sentence contained in any of the books
should involve them and their families in destruction. The universal
opinion was that it was right to compel men to believe what the majority
of society had now accepted as the truth, and, if they refused, it was
right to punish them. No one in the dominating party was heard to raise
his voice in behalf of intellectual liberty. The mystery of things above
reason was held to be the very cause that they should be accepted by
Faith; a singular merit was supposed to appertain to that mental
condition in which belief precedes understanding.

[Sidenote: Fanaticism of Theodosius.]

The death-blow to paganism was given by the Emperor Theodosius, a
Spaniard, who, from the services he rendered in this particular, has
been rewarded with the title of "The Great." From making the practice of
magic and the inspection of the entrails of animals capital offences, he
proceeded to prohibit sacrifices, A.D. 391, and even the entering of
temples. He alienated the revenues of many temples, confiscated the
estates of others, some he demolished. The vestal virgins he dismissed,
and any house profaned by incense he declared forfeited to the imperial
exchequer. When once the property of a religious establishment has been
irrevocably taken away, it is needless to declare its worship a capital
crime.

But not only did the government thus constitute itself a thorough
auxiliary of the new religion; it also tried to secure it from its own
dissensions. Apostates were deprived of the right of bequeathing their
own property. Inquisitors of faith were established; they were at once
spies and judges, the prototypes of the most fearful tribunal of modern
times. Theodosius, to whom the carrying into effect of these measures
was due, found it, however, more expedient for himself to institute
living emblems of his personal faith than to rely on any ambiguous
creed. He therefore sentenced a