of the Pagans.  He maintained, moreover, that prayers addressed to departed saints were void of all efficacy; and treated with contempt fastings and mortifications, the celibacy of the clergy, and the various austerities of the monastic life.  And finally he affirmed that the conduct of those who, distributing their substance among the indigent, submitted to the hardships of a voluntary poverty, or sent a part of their treasures to Jerusalem for devout purposes, had nothing in it acceptable to the Deity” (p. 129).  Under these circumstances we can scarcely wonder that Vigilantius was scouted as a heretic by all orthodox, lucre-loving clerics.  He is the forerunner of a long line of protesters against the ever-growing strength and superstition of the Church.

CENTURY VI.

The darkness deepens as we proceed.  Christianity spread among the barbarous tribes of the East and West, but “it must, however, be acknowledged, that of these conversions, the greatest part were owing to the liberality of the Christian princes, or to the fear of punishment, rather than to the force of argument or to the love of truth.  In Gaul, the Jews were compelled by Childeric to receive the ordinance of baptism; and the same despotic method of converting was practised in Spain” (p. 141).  “They required nothing of these barbarous people that was difficult to be performed, or that laid any remarkable restraint upon their appetites and passions.  The principal injunctions they imposed upon these rude proselytes were that they should get by heart certain summaries of doctrine, and to pay the images of Christ and the saints the same religious services which they had formerly offered to the statues of the gods” (p. 142).  Libraries were formed in many of the monasteries, and schools were opened, but apparently only for those who intended to enter the monastic life; these, however, did not flourish, for many bishops showed “bitter aversion” towards “every sort of learning and erudition, which they considered as pernicious to the progress of piety” (p. 144).  “Greek literature was almost everywhere neglected....  Philosophy fared still worse than literature; for it was entirely banished from all the seminaries which were under the inspection and government of the ecclesiastical order” (Ibid).  The wealth of the Church grew apace.  “The arts of a rapacious priesthood were practised upon the ignorant devotion of the simple; and even the remorse of the wicked was made an instrument of increasing the ecclesiastical treasure.  For an opinion was propagated with industry among the people, that the remission of their sins was to be purchased by their liberalities to the churches and monks” (p. 146).  “The monastic orders, in general, abounded with fanatics and profligates; the latter were more numerous than the former in the Western convents, while in those of the East the fanatics were predominant” (ibid).  It was in this