2. The ridicule heaped upon the early Church by the pagans on account of the simplicity of Christian worship has already received mention. This cause of reproach was none the less emphasized by Judaistic critics, to whom rituals and ceremony, formalism and prescribed rites, figured as essentials of religion. Very early in its history, the Church manifested a tendency to supplant the pristine simplicity of its worship by elaborate ceremonies, patterned after Judaistic ritual and heathen idolatries. 3. As to such innovations, Mosheim writes as follows, with reference to conditions existing in the second century: "There is no institution so pure and excellent which the corruption and folly of man will not in time alter for the worse, and load with additions foreign to its nature and original design. Such in a particular manner was the fate of Christianity. In this century many unnecessary rites and ceremonies were added to the Christian worship, the introduction of which was extremely offensive to wise and good men. These changes, while they destroyed the beautiful simplicity of the gospel, were naturally pleasing to the gross multitude, who are more delighted with the pomp and splendor of external institutions than with the native charms of rational and solid piety, and who generally give little attention to any objects but those which strike their outward senses."--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4.) The author just cited explains that the bishops of that day increased the ceremonies and sought to give them splendor "by way of accommodation to the infirmities and prejudices of both Jews and heathen."--(See Note 1, end of chapter.) 4. To more effectually reconcile the gospel requirements with Jewish prejudice, which still clung to the letter of the Mosaic law, the officers of the Church in the first and second centuries took to themselves the ancient titles; thus, bishops styled themselves chief priests, and deacons, Levites. "In like manner," says Mosheim, "the comparison of the Christian _oblation_ with the Jewish _victim_ and _sacrifice_, produced a multitude of unnecessary rites, and was the occasion of introducing that erroneous notion of the _eucharist_, which represents it as a real sacrifice, and not merely as a commemoration of that great offering that was once made upon the cross for the sins of mortals."--(Mosheim, "Eccl. Hist.," Cent. II, Part II, ch. 4:4.)