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populi," all unintelligible latin words; but the spirit of the romish church soon subdued the benevolent purposes of the holy father, and before two centuries had passed away the popular bishop was denounced as a heretic in the Spalatro synod, and all who had celebrated mass, or who should venture to celebrate it in the slavonian tongue, were delivered over to undoubted damnation.[1] The people appealed to the pope, but the pope fancied the slavonian language to be tainted with gothic heresy, and refused to listen. A happy thought saved the cyrillian translation. St. Jerome was a slavonian—born, undoubtedly, in Dalmatia—to him they attributed the invention of the old slavonian alphabet. The discovery was received with rapture—made its way to Rome—fell in with the prejudices of the time, and papal authority proclaimed the slavonian liturgy to be the work of the slavonian saint.
- ↑ On this occasion they confounded "Sclavonica lingua" and "Gothicæ literæ," deeming them identical. A foreigner was a goth—a goth an arian—an arian an undoubted child of perdition—and thus passion whetted its weapons upon ignorance, and attacked fiercely and blindly whatever it mistrusted.
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