The Catholics, oppressed by royal and military force, were far superior
to their adversaries in numbers and learning. With the same weapons
which the Greek [112] and Latin fathers had already provided for the
Arian controversy, they repeatedly silenced, or vanquished, the fierce
and illiterate successors of Ulphilas. The consciousness of their
own superiority might have raised them above the arts and passions of
religious warfare. Yet, instead of assuming such honorable pride, the
orthodox theologians were tempted, by the assurance of impunity, to
compose fictions, which must be stigmatized with the epithets of
fraud and forgery. They ascribed their own polemical works to the most
venerable names of Christian antiquity; the characters of Athanasius and
Augustin were awkwardly personated by Vigilius and his disciples; [113]
and the famous creed, which so clearly expounds the mysteries of the
Trinity and the Incarnation, is deduced, with strong probability, from
this African school. [114] Even the Scriptures themselves were profaned
by their rash and sacrilegious hands. The memorable text, which asserts
the unity of the three who bear witness in heaven, [115] is condemned
by the universal silence of the orthodox fathers, ancient versions,
and authentic manuscripts. [116] It was first alleged by the Catholic
bishops whom Hunneric summoned to the conference of Carthage. [117] An
allegorical interpretation, in the form, perhaps, of a marginal note,
invaded the text of the Latin Bibles, which were renewed and corrected
in a dark period of ten centuries. [118] After the invention of
printing, [119] the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own
prejudices, or those of the times; [120] and the pious fraud, which
was embraced with equal zeal at Rome and at Geneva, has been infinitely
multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe.

[Footnote 112: Fulgentius, bishop of Ruspae, in the Byzacene province,
was of a senatorial family, and had received a liberal education. He
could repeat all Homer and Menander before he was allowed to study Latin
his native tongue, (Vit. Fulgent. c. l.) Many African bishops might
understand Greek, and many Greek theologians were translated into
Latin.]

[Footnote 113: Compare the two prefaces to the Dialogue of Vigilius of
Thapsus, (p. 118, 119, edit. Chiflet.) He might amuse his learned
reader with an innocent fiction; but the subject was too grave, and the
Africans were t