In the following year the war went on with varying fortunes, and towards its close both sides were anxious to terminate a conflict which had lasted for nearly twenty years. Two years later Raymond agreed to hard and humiliating terms, which involved the loss of two-thirds of his great dominions, their reversion to the King of France, and an oath to persecute heresy to the utmost of his power--concessions wrung from him by the distracted condition of his realm and of his unfortunate people. The way was left open to the Church to reap the fruits of victory, and the Inquisition was set to work among the people who for so long had bidden it defiance. _Religious Persecution._ To what extent the spirit of persecution is sanctioned by the New Testament is not very easy to determine. Giving all due weight to its gentler precepts, it is unhappily true that passages which reflect more than a tinge of the temper of intolerance are to be found with some frequency in the New Testament, and very many injunctions to extreme severity in the Old. It was inevitable that in rude ages the latter should exert a more potent influence on human conduct than the former, because they harmonized more completely with the existing tendencies of human nature. Until Christianity became the State religion of the Roman Empire the persecuting spirit wrought comparatively little harm. When the Church was weak it perceived the blessings of toleration; when the Church grew powerful it held toleration to be sinful. Even Constantine’s severe edicts do not appear to have resulted in much actual persecution, the few cases which occurred in the fourth century being looked upon as horrifying novelties. After that, however, the systematic repression of heretical opinions became general, and was warmly advocated by even the holiest doctors of the Church. Chrysostom and Augustine taught that heresy must be suppressed, but did not recommend the infliction of death. Jerome heartily approved the heretic being made to suffer corporal death in order to secure the eternal welfare of his soul, and the harsh laws of Theodosius doubtless represented a public opinion which was ever becoming more rigid and dangerous. It is somewhat curious that outrages upon the heterodox were, until the twelfth century, committed more frequently by “orthodox” mobs than by the ecclesiastical authorities--a fact which does not indicate a very effective teaching influence on the part of the Church. When, at Cologne in 1145, some Cathari were burnt despite the opposition of the clergy, St. Bernard, though arguing that they should have been won over by reason, quoted, with some inconsistency, St. Paul’s dictum that the monarch was the instrument of God’s wrath upon him that doeth evil.