but were rather subject to persecution from the state and from the established Catholicism, the Donatists for an especial instance, protested against the intermeddling of the temporal power with religious concerns.* The heathen, ' Apologeticug, c. 21 : " Sed et Csesares credidissent, si aut Csesares non essent sfficulo necessarii, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Cassares." • Thus the bishop Donatus of Carthage in 347 rejected the imperial commis- sioners, Paulus and Macarius, with the exclamation : " Quid est imperatori cum eccle- sia?" See Optatus Milev, : De schismate Donat. h iii. c. 3. The Donatists, however, were the first to invoke the imperial intervention in their controversies, and would doubtless have spoken very differently, had the decision turned in their favor. 92 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. wIlo now came over in a mass, had all along been accustomed to a union of politics with religion, of the imperial with the sacerdotal dignity. They could not imagine a state without some cultus, whatever might be its name. And as heathenism had outlived itself in the empire, and Judaism with its na- tional exclusiveness and its stationary character was totally disqualified, Christianity must take the throne. The change was as natural and inevitable as it was great. When Constantino planted the standard of the cross upon the forsaken temples of the gods, he but followed the irresistible cm'rent of history itself. Christianity had already, without a stroke of sword or of intrigue, achieved over the false religion the iuternal victoiy of spirit over matter, of truth over false- hood, of faith over superstition, of the worship of God over idolatry, of morality over corruption. Under a three hundred years' oppression, it had preserved its irrepressible moral vigor, and abundantly earned its new social position. It could not possibly continue a despised sect, a homeless child of the wilderness, but, like its divine founder on the third day after his crucifixion, it must rise again, take the reins of the world into its hands, and, as an all-transforming principle, take state, science, and art to itself, to breathe into them a higher life and consecrate them to the service of God. The church, of course, continues to the end a servant, as Christ himself came not to be ministered unto, but to minister; and she must at all times suffer persecution, outwardly or inwardly, from the ungodly world. Yet is she also the bride of the Son of God, therefore of royal blood ; and she is to make her purifying and sanctify- ing influence felt upon all orders of natural life and all forms of human society. And from this influence the state, of course, is not excepted. Union with the state is no more ne- cessarily a profanation of holy things than union with science and art, which, in fact, themselves proceed from God, and must subserve his glory. On the other hand, the state, as a necessary and divine institution for the protection of person and property,