You will see in Minutius Felix the abominable imputations with which the pagans attacked the Christian mysteries. The initiated were reproached with treating each other as brethren and sisters, solely with a view to profane that sacred name. They kissed, it was said, particular parts of the persons of the priests, as is still practised in respect to the santons of Africa; they stained themselves with all those pollutions which have since disgraced and stigmatized the templars. Both were accused of worshipping a kind of ass's head. We have seen that the early Christian societies ascribed to each other, reciprocally, the most inconceivable infamies. The pretext for these calumnies was the inviolable secret which every society made of its mysteries. It is upon this ground that in Minutius Felix, Cecilius, the accuser of the Christians, exclaims: "Why do they so carefully endeavor to conceal what they worship, since what is decent and honorable always courts the light, and crimes alone seek secrecy?" "_Cur occultare et abscondere quidquid colunt magnopere nituntur? Quum honesta semper publico gaudeant, scelera secreta sint."_ It cannot be doubted that these accusations, universally spread, drew upon the Christians more than one persecution. Whenever a society of men, whatever they may be, are accused by the public voice, the falsehood of the charge is urged in vain, and it is deemed meritorious to persecute them. How could it easily be otherwise than that the first Christians should be even held in horror, when St. Epiphanius himself urges against them the most execrable imputations? He asserts that the Christian Phibionites committed indecencies, which he specifies, of the grossest character; and, after passing through various scenes of pollution, exclaimed each of them: "I am the Christ." According to the same writer, the Gnostics and the Stratiotics equalled the Phibionites in exhibitions of licentiousness, and all three sects mingled horrid pollutions with their mysteries, men and women displaying equal dissoluteness. The Carpocratians, according to the same father of the Church, even exceeded the horrors and abominations of the three sects just mentioned. The Cerinthians did not abandon themselves to abominations such as these; but they were persuaded that Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph. The Ebionites, in their gospel, maintain that St. Paul, being desirous of marrying the daughter of Gamaliel, and not able to obtain her, became a Christian, and established Christianity out of revenge.