These reproaches, very conclusive in favour of the partisans of long beards, will be much more so, and silence the adversaries of that mark of manhood, if it be observed, that this same council of Carthage condemns as heretics those same Massalians whose shaved chins St. Epiphanius represents to be a crime. Is it likely that the Massalians should be condemned as heretics, and that at the same time the orthodox clergy should be required to imitate them, and follow a custom that is looked upon as the most scandalous of debauchery; such a law would be the height of inconsequence. It is much more reasonable to suppose, that, instead of the priests’ being ordered to have their chins shaved, they were forbidden to do it, that they might not look like the heretic Massalians. Besides, what could be opposed to the council of Barcelona, which was held some time after that of Carthage, a council that has never experienced any contradiction, and in which shaving the beard is again forbidden? We read in the third canon, _Ut nullus Clericorum comam nutriat aut barbam radat. Let no clergyman keep up his hair or shave his beard._ We have demonstrated then the fraud of the antibearded priests, and proved that the word _radat_ has been suppressed in the 44th canon. Clergymen therefore, by this council of Carthage, at which two hundred and fourteen bishops attended, are forbidden to cut off their beards, and the general opinion of the primitive church, on this point, is established. If we did not know, that private interests can persuade men to contradict the best founded maxims, we should be greatly surprised no doubt to find learned men of distinction presume to write, that the general opinion of the primitive Church condemned long beards. At the head is cardinal Baronius (tom. i. ad. ann. 48). Let us refer the proselytes of this credulous writer of legends to _le Mercure_ for April 1765; they will there find that a learned Jesuit, father Oudin in his inquiries concerning beards, proves, that this cardinal was a bad man, or that he would not read his St. Epiphanius. The ordinances of the provincial synods and councils which have made use of this council of Carthage to justify their forbidding the clergy to wear long beards, should therefore be void of course: the edifice falls of itself when the foundation is undermined.