even more bloodily than they did the Athanasians, whom they went far to drive out of the province. In this way they in turn weakened their State, besides otherwise undergoing the social diseases of empire, so that in the sixth century Belisarius was able to reconquer it for Justinian, the emperor of the East. In Spain, conquered by the Arian Visigoths, there was relative toleration. The Arian clergy, however, being mostly unlettered Teutons, were less useful instruments to the ruler than Catholics could be; and late in the sixth century a new king at his accession there adopted Trinitarianism. The further the orthodox faith went, the more dangerous, it was clear, was the position of the remaining Arian kingdoms, since their heresy was always a pretext for a union of the others to crush them. A barbarian king, told by his clergy that he did God service in destroying heretics, needed little further encouragement to war; and such counsel the orthodox Church was always ready to give. Already at the end of the fifth century the immigrant Franks established in Gaul under Clovis were "converted" in mass, by the mere fiat of their king, to orthodox Christianity; and the reconquest of Italy by Belisarius and Narses further strengthened the Catholic cause. It was thus good policy for the Lombards, who in their turn conquered the north and south but never the centre of Italy, to begin to give up their Arianism at the end of the century. It is probable, however, that in any case Arianism would in course of time have fallen in the new barbaric States as it did in the eastern empire. The toleration given by Theodoric in Italy, and by the earlier Arian Goths in Spain and Gaul, to the Catholic creed, could avail nothing to stay the orthodox purpose of destroying heresy; and the element of rationalism on the Arian side was precisely what could least prosper in an era of ignorance. Thus the Catholic creed had time and credulity on its side; and, Christianity at that stage being above all things politically useful as an aid to arbitrary government, the most pronounced and sacerdotal and superstitious form of Christianity must be the most useful from a calculating monarch's point of view.