In the early Church, kings and emperors were looked upon as political parents, whose authority and majesty were reputed sacred and supreme under God. All disloyalty or disrespect shown them, either in word or action, was always severely chastised by the laws of the Church. For the first three hundred years, Christians gloried over the heathens in this, that though the emperors were heathen, and some of them furious persecutors of the Christians, yet there were never any seditious or disloyal persons to be found among them. The fourth Council of Carthage forbids the ordination of any seditious person. The fourth Council of Toledo orders all clergymen that took up arms in any sedition to be degraded from their order, and to be confined to a monastery to do penance all their lives. See Bingham Antiq. of the Christ. Church, p. 985 sq.