Jerom speaking of the different manner which writers found themselves obliged to use, in their controversial, and dogmatical writings, intimates, that in controversy whose end was victory, rather than truth, it was allowable to employ every artifice which would best serve to conquer an adversary; in proof of which "Origen, says he, Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, have written many thousands of lines against Celsus, and Porphyry: consider with what arguments and what slippery problems they baffle what was contrived against them by the spirit of the devil: and because they are sometimes forced to speak, they speak not what they think, but what is necessary against those who are called Gentiles. I do not mention the Latin writers, Tertullian, Cyprian, Minutius, Victorinus, Lactantius, Hilarius, lest I be thought not so much defending myself, as accusing others, &c." Op. Tom. 4. p. 2. p.:256. Middleton's Free Enquiry, p. 158. It is remarkable that the names mentioned by Jerom are the names of the early apologists for Christianity. When the Church got the upper hand however, they found a better way to confute those wicked men, Celsus and Porphyry, than by "slippery problems" and by speaking "not what they thought (to be true) but what was necessary against those who are called Gentiles," viz. by seeking after, and burning carefully their troublesome works. Of the fathers of the Church who were its pillars, leaders, and great men. Dr. Middleton observes in his Preface to his Enquiry, &c, p. 31, as follows: "I have shown by many indisputable facts, that the ancient Fathers were extremely credulous and superstitious, possessed with strong prejudices, and an enthusiastic zeal in favor not only of Christianity in general, but of every particular doctrine, which a wild imagination could engraft upon it, and scrupling no art or means by which they might propagate the same principles. In short they were of a character front which nothing could be expected that was candid and impartial; nothing but what a weak or crafty understanding could supply towards confirming those prejudices with which they happened to be possessed, especially where religion was the subject, which above all other motives strengthens every bias, and inflames every passion of the human mind. And that this was actually the case, I have shown also, by many instances in which we find them roundly affirming as true things evidently false and fictitious; in order to strengthen as they fancied the evidences of the Gospel or to serve a present turn of confuting an adversary: or of enforcing a particular point which they were labouring to establish."