1297. “But yet superstition was rapidly advancing, and the complaints of priestly corruption and general licentiousness were on the increase. The election of Pope Damasus was the occasion of a public riot, in which his partisans besieged the church where the friends of the other candidate were assembled, broke down the doors, and uncovered the roof; and in the shameful battle that ensued, one hundred and thirty-seven persons were slain, of both sexes. The splendour of the Roman bishops had grown so rapidly, that the heathen historian Ammianus Marcellinus pronounced the episcopal style of living to be superior to that of a king. Toward the close of the fourth century, Chrysostom defended the new system of monkery, on the ground that Christians had become so corrupt, especially in the large cities. Jerome before him had bitterly complained of the prevailing degeneracy, and became a monk in order to escape from it. St. Augustine lamented that many Christians in his day (about A. D. 389) were superstitious, that they adored the sepulchres and pictures of the saints, and ate and drank to excess at funerals, under the excuse that it was an act of religion. 1298. “The fifth century was not likely to improve the state of the church, but on the contrary it witnessed a rapid deterioration. The testimony of Salvian is set forth by Fleury, proving that among the Roman Christians there was much heathen idolatry remaining; that the greater part were only Christians in name, and worse than the barbarians in life and conversation. 1299. In the sixth century, toward the close, we see Pope Gregory the Great attributing all the public calamities to the ambition of the bishops, who concealed the teeth of wolves under the face of sheep. 1300. “The seventh century. We begin to see the fruits of clerical celibacy in the rule established by the council of Toledo, that the illegitimate children of the clergy, from the bishop down to the sub-deacon, should be slaves in the church where their fathers served. It is to be presumed that this canon was intended to discourage and amend the incontinence of the clergy, but the adoption of such an extraordinary law proves plainly the prevalence of the evil. So general had the worldliness of the clergy become, that in the latter part of this century the most eminent bishops of France took great part in political matters, and in time of war marched at the head of their troops, like the lay barons.