was read in the schools of Persia, and the successive Catholici of Seleucia had abolished Monachism and were secularizing the clergy. 23. If then there is now a form of Christianity such, that it extends throughout the world, though with varying measures of prominence or prosperity in separate places;--that it lies under the power of sovereigns and magistrates, in various ways alien to its faith;--that flourishing nations and great empires, professing or tolerating the Christian name, lie over against it as antagonists;--that schools of philosophy and learning are supporting theories, and following out conclusions, hostile to it, and establishing an exegetical system subversive of its Scriptures;--that it has lost whole Churches by schism, and is now opposed by powerful communions once part of itself;--that it has been altogether or almost driven from some countries;--that in others its line of teachers is overlaid, its flocks oppressed, its Churches occupied, its property held by what may be called a duplicate succession;--that in others its members are degenerate and corrupt, and are surpassed in conscientiousness and in virtue, as in gifts of intellect, by the very heretics whom it condemns;--that heresies are rife and bishops negligent within its own pale;--and that amid its disorders and its fears there is but one Voice for whose decisions the peoples wait with trust, one Name and one See to which they look with hope, and that name Peter, and that see Rome;--such a religion is not unlike the Christianity of the fifth and sixth Centuries.[322:1] FOOTNOTES: [208:1] [This juxtaposition of names has been strangely distorted by critics. In the intention of the author, Guizot matched with Pliny, not with Frederick.] [213:1] Vid. Muller de Hierarch. et Ascetic. Warburton, Div. Leg. ii. 4. Selden de Diis Syr. Acad. des Inscript. t. 3, hist. p. 296, t. 5, mem. p. 63, t. 16, mem. p. 267. Lucian. Pseudomant. Cod. Theod. ix. 16. [214:1] Acad. t. 16. mem. p. 274. [215:1] Apol. 25. Vid. also Prudent. in hon. Romani, circ. fin. and Lucian de Deo Syr. 50. [215:2] Vid. also the scene in Jul. Firm. p. 449. [216:1] Tac. Ann. ii. 85; Sueton. Tiber. 36. [216:2] August. 93. [216:3] De Superst. 3. [216:4] De Art. Am. i. init. [217:1] Sat. iii. vi. [217:2] Tertul. Ap. 5. [218:1] Vit. Hel. 3. [219:1] Vid. Tillemont, Mem. and Lardner's Hist. Heretics. [221:1] Bampton Lect. 2. [222:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 61. [223:1] Burton, Bampton Lect. note 44. [223:2] Montfaucon, Antiq. t. ii. part 2, p. 353. [223:3] Hær. i. 20. [223:4] De Præscr. 43. [225:1] Vid. Kortholt, in Plin. et Traj. Epp. p. 152. Comment. in Minuc. F. &c. [228:1] "Itaque imposuistis in cervicibus nostris sempiternum dominum, quem dies et noctes timeremus; quis enim non timeat omnia providentem et cogitantem et animadvertentem, et omnia ad se pertinere putantem, curiosum, et plenum negotii Deum?"--_Cic. de Nat. Deor._ i. 20.