This account of professed Christianity at this time by Cyprian is confirmed by the testimony of Eusebius, who was nearly contemporary with him. “Through too much liberty they grew negligent and slothful, envying and reproaching one another, waging, as it were, civil wars among themselves, bishops quarreling with bishops, and the people divided into parties. Hypocrisy and deceit were grown to the highest pitch of wickedness. They were become so insensible as not so much as to think of appeasing the divine anger; but like atheists they thought the world destitute of any providential government and care, and thus added one crime to another. The bishops themselves had thrown off all concern about religion, were perpetually contending with one another, and did nothing but quarrel with and threaten and envy and hate one another: they were full of ambition and tyrannically used their power.”—_Eusebius’ History_, Book VIII, Chap. I, as quoted in _Jones’ Church History_. Ruter’s Church History. (Third Century.) “With the opinions, the Christian teachers had adopted the habits and manners of the philosophic school. They assumed the dress of the pompous sophist, and delivered the plain doctrines of the gospel with strained and studied eloquence.” “This season of external prosperity was improved by the ministers of the church for the exertion of new claims and the assumption of powers with which they had not previously been invested.”—p. 52. “Several alterations in the form of church government appear to have been introduced during the third century. Some degree of pomp was thought necessary to render so singular an institution respectable to the minds of a gross multitude who are only capable of judging from external appearances. As their numbers increased their labors became proportionally greater, and it was necessary to provide assistance and more agreeable to good order to assign to each his proper function. Inferior ministers were therefore instituted, who derived their appellations from the office they filled. “These ministers probably derived their emoluments, not merely from the precarious bounty of the society, but from a certain proportion of the fixed revenues of the church. The principal of them had obtained before the close of this century the possession of several considerable estates, which had been bequeathed or presented to the church. The external dignity of the ministers of religion was accompanied by a still greater change in its discipline. The simple rules prescribed by the apostles for the preservation of good order in the church branched out into so many luxuriant shoots that it was difficult to recognize the parent stem.”—p. 53. “A regular form of discipline began to take place during the third century in every matter which fell within the cognizance of the church.” p. 51.