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 chap, xxxvii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 105 introduced themselves into the provinces ; but these foreign sectaries were involved in the common disgrace of the Gnostics, and the Imperial laws were executed by the public hatred. The rational opinions of the Pelagians were propagated from Britain to Eome, Africa and Palestine, and silently expired in a super- stitious age. But the East was distracted by the Nestorian and Eutychian controversies ; which attempted to explain the mys- tery of the incarnation, and hastened the ruin of Christianity in her native land. These controversies were first agitated under the reign of the younger Theodosius ; but their important consequences extend far beyond the limits of the present volume. The metaphysical chain of argument, the contests of ecclesiastical ambition, and their political influence on the decline of the Byzan- tine empire, may afford an interesting and instructive series of history, from the general councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon to the conquest of the East by the successors of Mahomet.