CHAPTER XII

THE PRELATES OF THE CHURCH

BUT the events that occurred in the intermediate time, besides those already related, I have thought proper to pass by; I mean particularly the circumstances of the different heads of the churches, who from being shepherds of the reasonable flocks of Christ that did not govern in a lawful and becoming manner, were condemned, by divine justice, as unworthy of such a charge, to be the keepers of the unreasonable camel, an animal deformed in the very structure of its body, and condemned further to be the keepers of the imperial horses; also, the number and severity of the burdens and oppressions they bore for the sake of the sacred vessels and property of the churches, from the imperial rulers and governors at the time, in the midst of insult, injury, and torment; moreover, the ambitions aspirings of many to office, and the injudicious and unlawful ordinations that took place, the divisions among the confessors themselves, the great schisms and difficulties industriously fomented by the factious among the new members, against the relics of the church, devising one innovation after another, and unmercifully thrusting them into the midst of all these calamities, heaping up affliction upon affliction; all this, I say, I have resolved to pass by, judging it foreign to my purpose, wishing, as I said in the beginning, to shun and avoid giving; an account of them. But whatsoever things are serious and commendable according to the Scriptures—“if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,” deeming it most proper to tell and to describe these, and present them to the attention of the faithful, in a history of the admirable martyrs, as also, most consistent with that peace which has recently shone upon us from heaven, I shall consider myself as most likely to decorate the close of my work, if I present to the attention of the faithful an account of these.