10. Immoral Condition of the Church in General.--The wickedness of the clergy in the last centuries, the ambition of the bishops and their imitating in their lives the voluptuousness of princes, we have already noted in section four of part II, and therefore little need be said here further than to remark that those vices very rapidly increased. As time rolled on worldly prosperity seemed to relax the nerves of discipline. "Fraud, envy and malice prevailed in every congregation. The presbyters aspired to the episcopal office, which every day became an object more worthy their ambition. The bishops who contended with each other for ecclesiastical pre-eminence, appeared by their conduct to claim a secular and tyrannical power in the church; and the lively faith which still distinguished the Christians from the Gentiles was shown much less in their lives than in their controversial writings." [104]
11. Sometimes these struggles for place and power resulted in war and bloodshed. Such was the case in the fourth century when a new pope was to be elected to succeed Liberius [Li-be-ri-us]. One party in Rome was for one Damasus [Dam-a-sus], and another party for Ursicinus [Ur-si-ci-nus]. The contest resulted in a bloody conflict, houses were burned and many lost their lives. In one church alone one morning after the conflict there were found one hundred and thirty-seven corpses to bear witness to the violence of the struggle for what was claimed to be the office of viceregent of God on earth.
12. Moral Condition of the Church in the Fourth { 185} Century.--In the fourth century--"If we look at the lives and morals of the Christians--we shal find, as heretofore, that good men were commingled with bad, yet the number of the bad began gradually to increase, so that the truly pious and godly appeared more rare. when there was no more to fear from enemies from without; when the character of most bishops was tarnished with arrogance, luxury, effeminacy, animosity, resentments, and other defects; when the lower clergy neglected their proper duties, and were more attentive to controversies, than to the promotion of piety and the instruction of the people; when vast numbers were induced not by a rational conviction, but by the fear of punishment and the hope of worldly advantage to enroll themselves as Christians, how can it surprise us, that on all sides the vicious appeared a host, and the pious a little band almost overpowered by them. Against the flagitious and those guilty of heinous offenses, the same rules for penance were prescribed, as before the reign of Constantine. But as the times continually waxed worse and worse, the more honorable and powerful could sin with impunity, and only the poor and the unfortunate felt the severity of the laws." [105]