91). Fraud, as well as force and favour, lent its aid to the progress of
"the Gospel." We hear of the "imprudent methods employed to allure the
different nations to embrace the Gospel" (p. 98): "disgraceful" would be
a fitter term whereby to designate them, for Dr. Mosheim speaks of "the
endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far destitute of
all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of
the people. Rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and
miracles to be seen in certain places (a trick often practised by the
heathen priests), and the design of these reports was to draw the
populace, in multitudes, to these places, and to impose upon their
credulity ... Nor was this all; certain tombs were falsely given out for
the sepulchres of saints and confessors. The list of the saints was
augmented by fictitious names, and even robbers were converted into
martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places,
and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished, by a dream, that
the body of some friend of God lay there. Many, especially of the monks,
travelled through the different provinces; and not only sold, with most
frontless impudence, their fictitious relics, but also deceived the eyes
of the multitude with ludicrous combats with evil spirits or genii. A
whole volume would be requisite to contain an enumeration of the various
frauds which artful knaves practised, with success, to delude the
ignorant, when true religion was almost entirely superseded by horrid
superstition" (p. 98). When to all these weapons we add the forgeries
everywhere circulated (see ante, pp. 240-243), we can understand how
rapidly Christianity spread, and how "the faithful" were rendered
pliable to those whose interests lay in deceiving them. During this
century flourished some of the greatest fathers of the Church,
pre-eminent among whom we note Ambrose, of Milan, Augustine, of Hippo,
and the great ecclesiastical doctor, Jerome. Already, in this century,
we find clear traces of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and "when a