thing to see men who made a
profession of passing, without any difficulty, from one religion to
another, as many times as it was required by their interests. The
principle of that inconceivable corruption in the bosom of a religion
which was not yet completely developed, dated from a period anterior to
that which we are describing.(42) The councils and the emperors had
struggled in vain against apostasy, which the multitude of heresies, and
the vices of the times, had placed amongst legitimate actions.

"Theodosius began in 381 to punish the apostates by depriving them of the
right to make wills. In 383, he modified this law in respect to the
apostate catechumens; but the general principle maintained all the
apostates _absque jure Romano_. Valentinian II. followed the example of
his colleague, and applied the before-mentioned dispositions to those
Christians who became Jews or Manicheans. We know, from a law of 391, that
the nobility was infected by the general spirit of the age, because
Valentinian enacted, by this law, that those nobles who became apostates
were to be degraded in such a manner that they should not count even _in
vulgi ignobilis parte_. In 396, Arcadius deprived again of the right to
make wills those Christians _qui se idolorum superstitione impia
maculaverint_.(43) The political authorities, therefore, cannot be accused
of having remained indifferent to the progress of the evil. We must now
show how little power the laws had in a time like that which we are
describing.

"One day, St Augustinus presented to the assembly of the Christians of
Hippona, a man who was to become celebrated amongst renegades; born a
Pagan, he embraced Christianity, but returned again to the idols, and
exercised the lucrative profession of an astrologer; he now demanded to be
readmitted into the church, that is to say, to change for the third time
his religion. St Augustinus addressed, on that occasion, the
above-mentioned assembly in the following manner:--

" 'This former Christian, terrified by the power of God, is now repenting.
In the days of his faithfulness, he was enticed by the enemy, and became
an astrologer; seduced and deceived himself, he was seducing and deceiving
others; he uttered many lies against God, who gave men the power to do
good, and to do no evil; he said that it was not the will of men which
made men adulterers, but Venus; that it was Mars who rendered people
murderers; that justice was not inspire