the new doctrines would diffuse most thoroughly by incorporating
in themselves ideas borrowed from the old, that Truth would
assert her self in the end, and the impurity be cast off. In
accomplishing this amalgamation, Helena, the empress-mother,
aided by the court ladies, led the way. For her gratification
there were discovered, in a cavern at Jerusalem, wherein they had
lain buried for more than three centuries, the Savior's cross,
and those of the two thieves, the inscription, and the nails that
had been used. They were identified by miracle. A true
relic-worship set in. The superstition of the old Greek times
reappeared; the times when the tools with which the Trojan horse
was made might still be seen at Metapontum, the sceptre of Pelops
at Chaeroneia, the spear of Achilles at Phaselis, the sword of
Memnon at Nicomedia, when the Tegeates could show the hide of the
Calydonian boar and very many cities boasted their possession of
the true palladium of Troy; when there were statues of Minerva
that could brandish spears, paintings that could blush, images
that could sweat, and endless shrines and sanctuaries at which
miracle-cures could be performed.

As years passed on, the faith described by Tertullian was
transmuted into one more fashionable and more debased. It was
incorporated with the old Greek mythology. Olympus was restored,
but the divinities passed under other names. The more powerful
provinces insisted on the adoption of their time-honored
conceptions. Views of the Trinity, in accordance with Egyptian
traditions, were established. Not only was the adoration of Isis
under a new name restored, but even her image, standing on the
crescent moon, reappeared. The well-known effigy of that goddess,
with the infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our days in