We are warranted by good authorities to assign, as a collateral cause of this irretrievable revolution the neglect of heathen literature by the Christian church. I am not versed enough in ecclesiastical writers to estimate the degree of this neglect; nor am I disposed to deny that the mischief was beyond recovery before the accession of Constantine. From the primitive ages, however, it seems that a dislike of pagan learning was pretty general among Christians. Many of the fathers undoubtedly were accomplished in liberal studies, and we are indebted to them for valuable fragments of authors whom we have lost. But the literary character of the church is not to be measured by that of its more illustrious leaders. Proscribed and persecuted, the early Christians had not perhaps access to the public schools, nor inclination to studies which seemed, very excusably, uncongenial to the character of their profession. Their prejudices, however, survived the establishment of Christianity. The fourth council of Carthage in 398 prohibited the reading of secular books by bishops. Jerome plainly condemns the study of them except for pious ends. All physical science especially was held in avowed contempt, as inconsistent with revealed truths. Nor do there appear to have been any canons made in favour of learning, or any restriction on the ordination of persons absolutely illiterate.[481] There was indeed abundance of what is called theological learning displayed in the controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries; and those who admire such disputations may consider the principal champions in them as contributing to the glory, or at least retarding the decline, of literature. But I believe rather that polemical disputes will be found not only to corrupt the genuine spirit of religion, but to degrade and contract the faculties. What keenness and subtlety these may sometimes acquire by such exercise is more like that worldly shrewdness we see in men whose trade it is to outwit their neighbours than the clear and calm discrimination of philosophy. However this may be, it cannot be doubted that the controversies agitated in the church during these two centuries must have diverted studious minds from profane literature, and narrowed more and more the circle of that knowledge which they were desirous to attain.