says this Jeremiah of his time, " which ought everywhere to propitiate God, what does she, but provoke him to anger ? ^ How many may one meet, even in the church, who are not still drunkards, or debauchees, or adulterers, or forni- cators, or robbers, or murderers, or the like, or all these at once, without end ? It is even a sort of holiness among Chris- tian people, to be less vicious." From the public worship of God, he continues, and almost during it, they pass to deeds of shame. Scarce a rich man, but would commit murder and fornication. We have lost the whole power of Christianity, and ofi'end God the more, that we sin as Chi'istians. "We are s^feoek : " De gubernatione Dei, et de justo Dei praesentique judicio/ylsaac Taylor has made very large use in his interesting work on " Ancient Christianity " (vol. ii. p. 84 sqq.), to refute the idealized Puseyite view of the Nieene and post- Nicene age. But he ascribes too great importance to it, and forgets that it is an unbalanced picture of the shady side of the church at that time. It is true a ^ far as it goes, and yet leaves a false impression. There are books which by a partial and one-sided representation make even the truth lie. ^ " Ipsa Dei ecclesia qua; in omnibus esse debet placatrix Dei, quid est aliud quam exacerbatrix Dei ? aut, prseter paucissimos quosdam, qui mala fugiunt, quid est aliud pene omnis coetus Christianorum, quam sentina vitiorum ? " (P. 91.) § 12. Augustine's city of god. 89 worse than the barbarians and heathen. If the Saxon is wild, the Frank faithless, the Goth inhuman, the Alanian drunken, the Hun licentious, thej are hy reason of their ignorance far less punishable than we, who, knowing the commandments of God, commit all these crimes. He compares the Christians especially of Rome with the Arian Goths and Yandals, to the disparagement of the Romans, who add to the gross sins of nature the refined vices of civilization, passion for theatres, de- bauchery, and unnatural lewdness. Therefore has the just God given them into the hands of the barbarians and exposed them to the ravages of the migrating hordes. This horrible picture of the Christendom of the fifth cen- tury is undoubtedly in many respects an exaggeration of ascetic and monastic zeal. Yet it is in general not untrue ; it presents the dark side of the picture, and enables us to understand more fully on moral and psychological grounds the final dissolution of the western empire of Rome. CHAPTEE ni. ALLIANCE or CHTJECH AND STATE AND ITS ESTFLTJENCE ON PUBLIC MOKALS AND RELIGION. SOUECES. The church laws of the Christian emperors from Constantine to Justinian, collected in the Codex Theodosiantts of the year 438 (edited, with a learned commentary, by Jac. Gothofredus, Lyons, 1668, in six vols, fol. ; afterwards by J. D. Ritter, Lips. 1736, in seven vols. ;