pronounces deposition on the bishop or priest who separates himself from his wife under pretext of religion; while the fiftieth threatens equally rigorous punishment on the clerk or layman who shall abstain from marriage, from wine, or from meat, not for the purpose of devoting himself to piety, but on account of holding them in abomination—such belief being a slander on the goodness of God, and a calumny on the perfection of His works.[75] Even a hundred years later there is still an occasional protest to be heard, showing how the more moderate section of the church still felt the danger to which she was exposed by intemperate ascetic zeal, and how narrow was the path which she had to trace between orthodoxy and heresy. The Fourth Council of Carthage, in 398, prescribing the examination to which all bishops-elect were to be subjected, specifies for inquiry among other points of faith questions as to whether the candidate disapproves of marriage, or condemns second marriages, or prohibits the use of meat.[76] It shows how readily Manichæism or Catharism might lurk in the asceticism of the most devout. The tide, however, was fairly on the flood, and the resistance of the more reasonable among ecclesiastics was unavailing. It is true, that the influences which were now so powerful could evidently not be applied to the whole body of believers, as they would only result in gradual extinction or in lawless licentiousness; but as the ecclesiastical body was perpetuated by a kind of spiritual generation, it could, without hazarding a decrease of numbers, be subjected to regulations which should render obligatory the asceticism which as yet had been optional. The only wonder, in fact, is that this had not been earlier attempted. Such a rule, by widening the distinction between laymen and ecclesiastics, would be grateful to the growing sacerdotalism which ere long was to take complete possession of the church. Such a rule, moreover, was not only indicated by the examples of Buddhism and Manichæism, but had abundant precedent among the Pagans of the Empire. More than one passage in classical writers show that abstinence from women was regarded as an essential prerequisite to certain religious observances, and the existence of this feeling among the primitive Christians, based upon the injunction of Ahimelech, is indicated by St. Paul[77]—and this custom, as sacerdotalism developed, and formalism rendered the life of the minister of the altar a ceaseless round of daily service, would practically separate husband and wife. Moreover, much of the Pagan worship subjected its officials to general restrictions of greater or less severity. Diodorus Siculus states that the Egyptian priests were permitted to have but one wife, although unlimited polygamy was allowed to the people; while Chæremon the Stoic, according to St. Jerome, and Plutarch indicate that they were obliged to observe entire continence. The castration of the Galli,