Section 336
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ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 305 by this denier of his God and Lord, and this deserter of his former faith. Firmilianus was now, also, on his way to Antioch, and had come as far as Tarsus, because he had before made trial of his infidel wickedness ; but whilst we were thus collecting and re questing him to come, and awaiting his arrival, he departed this life." After these, and other matters, they also describe what kind of a life the man led, as follows : " But in those instances where he abandoned the rule of faith, and went over to spurious and corrupt doctrines before, there is no necessity of judging his conduct, when he was yet in no connexion with the church ; nor that he was in poverty and beggary ; and that he who had received neither wealth from his fathers, nor obtained possessions by any art, or any trade or business, has now arrived at ex cessive wealth, by his iniquities and sacrileges, and by those various means which he employed to exact and extort from the brethren, depressing the injured, and promising to aid them for a reward ; and yet how he de.ceived them, and without doing them any good, took advantage of the readiness of those who were in difficulties, to make them give any thing in order to be freed from their oppressors. We shall say nothing of his making merchandise of piety; (1 Tim. 6.) nor how he affected lofty things, and assumed with great haughtiness worldly dignities, wishing rather to be called .a magistrate (ducenarius) than a bishop, strut ting through the forum, and reading letters, and repeating them as he walked in public, and how he was escorted by multitudes going before and following after him : how he, also, brought envy and odium upon the faith, by his pomp, and the haughti ness of his heart. We shall say nothing of the vanity and pre tensions with which he contrived, in our ecclesiastical assemblies, to catch at glory and empty shadows, and to confound the minds of the more simple, with such things as these ; nothing of his preparing himself a tribunal and throne, not as a disciple of Christ, but having, like the rulers of this world, a secretum,* and * The secretum, was the exclusive seat or place where the magistrate sat to de cide cases. It was elevated and enclosed with railings and curtains, so as the more