the same province, they have more than any thing else encouraged me to it. _Anastasius_ and _Platina_, the two _Classics_, as they are deemed, in this branch of History, have indeed given us the _Lives of the Popes_, from the foundation of the See of _Rome_ to their times, but in so broken, imperfect, and unsatisfactory a manner, that from them we learn but very little, even concerning those of whom they have said most. It was not their design to write a History, but only to draw, as it were in miniature, the portraits of the _Roman_ Bishops, by relating, in a summary way, such of their actions, as appeared to them most worthy of being recorded; and, to say the truth, they have both betrayed no less want of discernment in chusing what they should relate, than of exactness in relating what they had chosen. _Anastasius_ the Monk, surnamed _Bibliothecarius_, that is, Library-keeper, Secretary, and Chancellor of the Church of _Rome_ (for all these employments antiently centred in one person, and were comprised under the common name of _Bibliothecarius_) flourished in the ninth century, under _Nicolas_ I. _Adrian_ II. and _John_ VIII. He wrote a succinct account of the Bishops, who governed the Church of _Rome_, from St. _Peter_ to _Nicolas_ I. who died in 867. But the memoirs he made use of were none of the best. In his time the world was over-run with forged or corrupted Pontificals, Martyrologies, Legends, _&c._ which were then no less universally received, than they have been since rejected by the learned of all persuasions. However, that from these the _Bibliothecarian_ borrowed the greater part of his materials, at least for the six first centuries, is but too apparent from his overlooking, nay, and often contradicting, the unexceptionable testimonies of contemporary writers; as will be seen in the sequel of the present History. As therefore the records, which he copied, are so justly suspected, and his own authority can be of no weight with respect to those distant times, the reader must not be surprised to find, that, in this History, I have paid no manner of regard to an author, who has been hitherto blindly followed by those, who have written on the same subject. There may indeed be some truth in what he relates; but his frequent mistakes render that truth too precarious to be relied on, unless confirmed by the concurring testimonies of other more credible and less credulous authors. However, in the times less remote from his own, I shall readily allow his authority its due weight; the rather, as he seems not to have written with a design of imposing upon others, but to have been imposed upon himself by frauds and forgeries; for he wrote in an age, when the world lay involved in the thickest mist of ignorance, when superstition and credulity triumphed without controul, and spurious pieces, filled with idle and improbable stories, had thrust every grave writer, nay, and the Gospels themselves, out of doors.