ians. The more
impetuous and enthusiastic supporters did persecute, and persecute most
relentlessly, the adherents of the dying faith; but persecution, whether
of good or evil, always fails as a means of suppressing a hated
doctrine, unless it can be carried to the extent of extermination of its
supporters; and the more far-seeing leaders of the Catholic Church soon
recognized that a slight surrender of principle was a far surer road to
success than stubborn, uncompromising opposition.

25. It was in this spirit that the Catholics dealt with the oracles of
heathendom. Mr. Lecky is hardly correct when he says that nothing
analogous to the ancient oracles was incorporated with Christianity.[1]
There is the notable case of the god Sosthenion, whom Constantine
identified with the archangel Michael, and whose oracular functions were
continued in a precisely similar manner by the latter.[2] Oracles that
were not thus absorbed and supported were recognized as existent, but
under diabolic control, and to be tolerated, if not patronized, by the
representatives of the dominant religion. The oracle at Delphi gave
forth prophetic utterances for centuries after the commencement of the
Christian era; and was the less dangerous, as its operations could be
stopped at any moment by holding a saintly relic to the god or devil
Apollo's nose. There is a fable that St. Gregory, in the course of his
travels, passed near the oracle, and his extraordinary sanctity was such
as to prevent all subsequent utterances. This so disturbed the presiding
genius of the place, that he appealed to the saint to undo the baneful
effects his presence had produced; and Gregory benevolently wrote a
letter to the devil, which was in fact a license to continue the
business of prophesying unmolested.[3] This nonsensical fiction shows
clearly enough that the oracles were not generally looked upon as
extinguished by Christianity. As the result of a similar policy we find
the names and functions of the pagan gods and the earlier Christian
saints confused in the most extraordinary manner; the saints assuming
the duties of the moribund deities where those duties were of a harmless
or necessary character.[4]

[Footnote 1: Rise and Influence of Rationalism, i. p. 31.]

[Footnote 2: Maury, p. 244, et seq.]

[Footnote 3: Scot, book vii. ch. i.]

[Footnote 4: Middleton's Letter from Rome.]

26. The Church carried out exactly the same principles in her missionary
effo