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 338 Outli7tes of European History the Church as he saw fit, and the clergy did not complain. The government was, indeed, indispensable to them. It undertook to root out paganism by destroying the heathen shrines and preventing heathen sacrifices, and it punished severely those who refused to accept the teachings sanctioned by the Church. Fig. 134. Santa Maria Maggiore This beautiful church at Rome was built shortly after Constantine's time, and the interior, here shown, with its stately columns, above which are fine mosaics, is still nearly as it was in the time of St. Augustine, fifteen hundred years ago. The ceiling is of the sixteenth century The Church begins to seek inde- pendence But as the great Empire began to fall apart, there was a growing tendency among the churchmen in the West to resent the interference of the new rulers whom they did not respect. Consequently they managed gradually to free themselves in large part from the control of the government. They then pro- ceeded to assume themselves many of the duties of government, which the weak and disorderly states into which the Roman Empire fell were unable to perform properly. One of the bishops of Rome (Pope Gelasius I, d. 496) briefly stated the principle upon which the Church rested its claims, as