4976. Moreover there were also very many who were in the worship of idols, and many prelates, who persuaded people that a stone was alive, exhibiting tears and several things, whereby the simple were seduced into worshipping stone or wood, and became altogether idolatrous. Hence it was, that, everywhere in the churches, and in the roads, there were simple persons on their knees before statues, and they kissed stones, and so were altogether in idolatrous worship (and, although their more intelligent prelates saw this, yet they tolerated it, merely for the sake of acquiring gain), and that they [i. e. the people] were thus kept in dense darkness concerning Divine worship, in order that by this means they might be worshipped as gods, and that they [i. e. the people] might offer their goods to them.