About the general sincerity of the emperors in passing their educational laws there can be no doubt. Jung thinks that these magnificent and munificent decrees were not always sincerely meant or carried out, ‘et multa interesse, ut Romani aiebant, inter os atque offam’.[876] But the concrete fact of the help given to Autun, and the general correspondence between the historical events and the school conditions as recorded in Ausonius and elsewhere, suggest that the suspicion is on the whole unjustified. The slackness in paying salaries, which he quotes, was one of the abuses to which the emperors specially addressed themselves, and Ausonius’s epigram about the happiness of the grammarian,[877] to which he refers, is no proof whatsoever. For it does not imply broken promises, and happiness may be impaired by causes independent of imperial laws. PART III CHRISTIAN EDUCATION 1. INTRODUCTORY: CHURCH AND STATE We have seen how large the emperors loomed in the ideas and education of the fourth century, and what some of the evil effects of this were. As we pass into the fifth century we find a growing reaction. The balance is shifted, and the Church begins to receive from the emperors an authority which had previously been confined to the secular State. At first the Church had been independent, unnoticed by the State; then, after the persecutions of the early Empire, it found imperial recognition with the accession of Constantine. But there was still a measure of independence of the State: the emperors did not interfere with Church dogma, and the bishops took no part in politics. They were, as yet, very humble and submissive, for they felt the need of imperial protection, having no sufficient organization of their own and no effective ecclesiastical government; though a considerable machinery had been created by the councils which had been meeting since the third century. A third stage is reached when the bishops become haughty and imperious and begin to meddle with politics. The clergy have strengthened themselves by organization and training. The latent antagonism between Church and State becomes prominent, and the State sometimes comes off worse. And when the political framework goes under, the power of the Church grows and prospers.[878]