The Christian Church was a very democratic organization. Patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, priests, and deacons were drawn from all ranks of life. No special training at first was considered necessary to fit them for their duties, though the more celebrated ministers were often highly educated. To eke out their salaries the clergy sometimes carried on business as farmers and shopkeepers. Where, however, a church had sufficient funds to support its bishop, his engagement in secular affairs was discouraged and finally prohibited. In the fourth century, as earlier, priests and bishops were generally married men. The sentiment in favor of celibacy for the clergy became very pronounced during the early Middle Ages, especially in the West, and led at length to the general abandonment of priestly marriage in those parts of Europe where papal influence prevailed. Distinctive garments for clergymen did not begin to come into use until the fifth century, when some of them began to don clothing of a more sober hue than was fashionable at the time. Clerical vestments were developed from two pieces of ancient Roman dress--the tunic and the toga. [4] Thus the clergy were gradually separated from the people, or laity, by differences in dress, by their celibate lives, and by their abstention from worldly occupations. HERESIES While the Church was perfecting her organization, she was also elaborating her doctrines. Theologians engaged in many controversies upon such subjects as the connection of Christ with God and the nature of the Trinity. In order to obtain an authoritative expression of Christian opinion, councils of the higher clergy were held, at which the opposing views were debated and a decision was reached. The Council of Nicaea, which condemned Arianism, formed the first, and one of the most important, of these general gatherings of the Church. After the Church had once expressed itself on any matter of Christian belief, it was regarded as unlawful to maintain a contrary opinion. Those who did so were called heretics, and their teachings, heresies. The emperor Theodosius, whose severe laws finally shattered the ancient paganism, [5] devoted even more attention to stamping out heresies among his Christian subjects. He prohibited meetings of heretics, burned their books, and threatened them with death if they persisted in their peculiar doctrines. During his reign a Spanish bishop and six of his partisans were executed for holding unorthodox beliefs. This was the beginning of the persecutions for heresy. WORSHIP