spiracy, and have acted even more culpably than Coluthus,[1] whom they rivalled in ambition. He reprehended their conduct, for he certainly had some pretext to plead in extenuation of his own guilt. When they perceived the gain resulting from his sale of ordinances, they felt unable to remain in subjection to the church; they accordingly constructed caverns, like those of robbers, in which they constantly assemble; and, day and night, they there invent calumnies against the Saviour, and against us. They revile the religious doctrines of the apostles; and, having, like the Jews, conspired against Christ, they deny his divinity, and declare him to be on a level with other men. They collect all those passages which allude to the incarnation of our Saviour, and to his having humbled himself for our salvation, and bring them forward as corroborative of their own impious assertion; while they evade all those which declare his divinity, and the glory which he possesses with the Father. They maintain the ungodly hypothesis entertained by the Greeks and the Jews, concerning Jesus Christ; and, at the same time, endeavor, by every art, to ingratiate themselves with those people.
"All those suppositions connected with our religion, which have been advanced to excite derision, they represent as true. They daily excite persecutions and seditions against us. They bring accusations against us before judicial tribunals, suborning as witnesses certain unprincipled women,
- ↑ Coluthus was one of the Alexandrian clergy, and seceded from Bishop Alexander's church about A.D. 319. He taught the heresy, that God is not the author of those just punishments which providentially afflict men. He ordained bishops without authority.—Augustine on Heresies, Chap. 66.
