Subsequent to their removal into Bohemia, they became incorporated with the United Bohemian Brethren, whose numbers were considerable in every part of the empire. Scarcely, however, were they reduced to order, when a terrible persecution was set on foot by the Catholic party, and they were called upon to prove the strength of their faith by endurance and perseverance to the end. They were compelled to forsake their towns and villages in the depths of winter. The sick were cast into the fields. Hundreds expired in flames, or on the rack. The public prisons were filled with suspected persons. Such as effected their escape retired into the caves and deserts of the country, where they held religious assemblies, elected teachers, and decided upon their future course. About 1500, a large company of the Semi-Judaisers removed into Transylvania, where they experienced many vicissitudes until the dawn of the Reformation in Germany. At this time they had many large and flourishing congregations, and being generally of the poorer class, and withal extremely peaceable and inoffensive in their manners, they were suffered by the princes and nobility of the country to live upon their estates without molestation. In 1565, they first appear in history as a people obnoxious to the rulers of Transylvania; and then it was chiefly in consequence of the success which had attended the propagation of their doctrines, and the conversion of Francis Davidis, superintendent of the Socinian churches in that country, to their creed. Davidis, to eminent talents and great learning, united the most ardent zeal and untiring perseverance. Besides taking advantage of every opportunity to disseminate his own peculiar views, he boldly attacked the doctrines of the adverse party, disputing in person with the Socinian doctors, and contending that the ten commandments of the Decalogue were of a moral and immutable nature, and, consequently, that the seventh day of the week should be observed as a sabbatical rest. His views were highly offensive to Christopher Bathori, prince of Transylvania, who threw him into prison, where he died in 1579, at an advanced age. His doctrines, thus brought into public and general notice, spread rapidly, and were embraced by several men of eminence. Of these the most distinguished were Christiern Francken, who disputed in public for three days with Faustus Socinus, upon the question of the Sabbath, and John Somers, Master of the Academy of Clausenberg. The violent contentions that ensued made a noise in all parts of Germany, and reached the ears of Luther, who wrote a book upon the subject. In 1585, Jacob Paleologus, of the isle of Ohio, was burned at Rome for Judaism. At his trial, he declared that the ten commandments were moral and immutable in their nature. In other countries executions of a similar character took place; and the Semi-Judaisers were persecuted from region to region, like the vilest of mankind.