as largely and as passionately attended as ever ; and even fights with wild animals, in which liuman life was generally more or less sacrificed, continued,' and, to the scandal of the Christian name, are tolerated in Spain and South America to this day. § 22. EviU of the Union of Church and State. Secularizor tion of the Church. We turn now to the dark side of the union of the chnrch with the state ; to the consideration of the disadvantages which grew out of their altered relation after the time of Constantino, and which continue to show themselves in the condition of the chm'ch in Europe to our own time. These evil results may be summed up under the general designation of the secularization of the church. By taking in the whole population of the Romau empire the chm*ch became, indeed, a church of the masses, a church of the people, but at the same time more or less a church of the world. Christiani- ty became a matter of fashion. The nmnber of hypocrites and formal professors rapidly increased ; " strict discipline, zeal, self-sacrifice, and brotherly love proportionally ebbed away; and many heathen customs and usages, under altered names, crept into the worship of God and the life of the Christian people. The Roman state had grown up under the influence of idolatry, and was not to be magically transformed at a ' In a law of Leo, of the year 469 (in the Cod. Justin, iii. tit. 12, 1. 11), besides the scena theatralis and the circense theatrum, also ferarum lacrymosa spectacula are mentioned as existing. Salvian likewise, in the fifth century (De gubern. Dei, 1. vi. p. 51), censures the delight of his contemporaries in such bloody combats of man with wild beasts. So late as the end of the seventh century a prohibition from the Trullan coimcil was called for in the East. In the West, Theodoric appears to have exchanged the beast fights for military displays, whence proceeded the later tournaments. Yet these shows have never become entirely extinct, but remain in the bull fights of Southern Europe, especially in Spain. * Thus Augustine, for example. Tract, in Joann. xxv. c. 10, laments that the church filled itself daily with those who sought Jesus not for Jesus, but for earthly profit. Comp. the similar complaint of Eusebius, Vita Const. 1. iv. c. 54. 126 THIBD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. stroke. Witli the secularizing process, therefore, a paganizing tendency went hand in hand. Yet the pure spirit of Christianity could by no means be polluted by this. On the contrary it retained even in the darkest days its faithful and steadfast confessors, conquered new provinces from time to time, constantly reacted, both within the established church and outside of it, in the form of monasticism, against the secular and the pagan influences, and, in its very struggle with the prevailing corruption, produced such church fathers as Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Augustine, such exemplary Christian mothers