Note 005 Sozomen, 1. i. c. 22. Socrates, 1. i. c. 10. These historians have been suspected, but I think with out reason, of an attachment to the Novatian doctrine. The emperor said to the bishop, "Acesius, take a ladder, and get up to heaven by yourself." Most of the Christian sects have, by turns, borrowed the ladder of Acesius.

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Note to Chapter 21 of Decline and Fall by Gibbon