102 (return) [ The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair

impression produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in

confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin

and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its

later progress. The main question, the divine origin of the

religion, is dexterously eluded or speciously conceded; his plan

enables him to commence his account, in most parts, below the

apostolic times; and it is only by the strength of the dark

coloring with which he has brought out the failings and the

follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion

is thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest

this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the

subsequent one of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a

Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of

candor.—M.]

Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the

Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the

established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious

but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the

convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling

providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom

find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of

Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the

human heart, and the general circumstances of mankind, as

instruments to execute its purpose, we may still be permitted,

though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the

first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of

the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most

effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes:

I. The inflexible, and if we may use the expression, the

intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the

Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial

spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles

from embracing the law of Moses.1023

II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional

circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that

important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the

primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the

Christians.

V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which

gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart

of the Roman empire.

1023 (return) [Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the

inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the

principle from which it was derived, we are, toto cœlo, divided

in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer

it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full

persuasion of the truth of Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon,

i. 9.—M.]

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient

world, and the facility with which the most different and even

hostile nations embraced, or at least respected, each other’s

superstitions. A single people refused to join in the common

intercourse of mankind. The Jews, who, under the Assyrian and

Persian monarchies, had languished for many ages the most

despised portion of their slaves, 1 emerged from obscurity under

the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to a

surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they

soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. 2 The

sullen obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites

and unsocial manners seemed to mark them out as a distinct

species of men, who boldly professed, or who faintly disguised,

their implacable habits to the rest of human kind. 3 Neither the

violence of Antiochus, nor the arts of Herod, nor the example of

the circumjacent nations, could ever persuade the Jews to

associate with the institutions of Moses the elegant mythology of

the Greeks. 4 According to the maxims of universal toleration,

the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. 5 The

polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices

should be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem;

6 whilst the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have

paid the same homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have

been an object of abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.

But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease

the jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and

scandalized at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily

introduced themselves into a Roman province. 7 The mad attempt of

Caligula to place his own statue in the temple of Jerusalem was

defeated by the unanimous resolution of a people who dreaded

death much less than such an idolatrous profanation. 8 Their

attachment to the law of Moses was equal to their detestation of

foreign religions. The current of zeal and devotion, as it was

contracted into a narrow channel, ran with the strength, and

sometimes with the fury, of a torrent. This facility has not

always prevented intolerance, which seems inherent in the

religious spirit, when armed with authority. The separation of

the ecclesiastical and civil power, appears to be the only means

of at once maintaining religion and tolerance: but this is a very

modern notion. The passions, which mingle themselves with

opinions, made the Pagans very often intolerant and persecutors;

witness the Persians, the Egyptians even the Greeks and Romans.

1st. The Persians.—Cambyses, conqueror of the Egyptians,

condemned to death the magistrates of Memphis, because they had

offered divine honors to their god. Apis: he caused the god to be

brought before him, struck him with his dagger, commanded the

priests to be scourged, and ordered a general massacre of all the

Egyptians who should be found celebrating the festival of the

statues of the gods to be burnt. Not content with this

intolerance, he sent an army to reduce the Ammonians to slavery,

and to set on fire the temple in which Jupiter delivered his

oracles. See Herod. iii. 25—29, 37. Xerxes, during his invasion

of Greece, acted on the same principles: l c destroyed all the

temples of Greece and Ionia, except that of Ephesus. See Paus. l.

vii. p. 533, and x. p. 887.

Strabo, l. xiv. b. 941. 2d. The Egyptians.—They thought

themselves defiled when they had drunk from the same cup or eaten

at the same table with a man of a different belief from their

own. “He who has voluntarily killed any sacred animal is punished

with death; but if any one, even involuntarily, has killed a cat

or an ibis, he cannot escape the extreme penalty: the people drag

him away, treat him in the most cruel manner, sometimes without

waiting for a judicial sentence. * * * Even at the time when King

Ptolemy was not yet the acknowledged friend of the Roman people,

while the multitude were paying court with all possible attention

to the strangers who came from Italy * * a Roman having killed a

cat, the people rushed to his house, and neither the entreaties

of the nobles, whom the king sent to them, nor the terror of the

Roman name, were sufficiently powerful to rescue the man from

punishment, though he had committed the crime involuntarily.”

Diod. Sic. i 83. Juvenal, in his 13th Satire, describes the

sanguinary conflict between the inhabitants of Ombos and of

Tentyra, from religious animosity. The fury was carried so far,

that the conquerors tore and devoured the quivering limbs of the

conquered.

Ardet adhuc Ombos et Tentyra, summus utrinque Inde furor vulgo,

quod numina vicinorum Odit uterque locus; quum solos credat

habendos Esse Deos quos ipse colit. Sat. xv. v. 85.

3d. The Greeks.—“Let us not here,” says the Abbé Guénée, “refer

to the cities of Peloponnesus and their severity against atheism;

the Ephesians prosecuting Heraclitus for impiety; the Greeks

armed one against the other by religious zeal, in the

Amphictyonic war. Let us say nothing either of the frightful

cruelties inflicted by three successors of Alexander upon the

Jews, to force them to abandon their religion, nor of Antiochus

expelling the philosophers from his states. Let us not seek our

proofs of intolerance so far off. Athens, the polite and learned

Athens, will supply us with sufficient examples. Every citizen

made a public and solemn vow to conform to the religion of his

country, to defend it, and to cause it to be respected. An

express law severely punished all discourses against the gods,

and a rigid decree ordered the denunciation of all who should

deny their existence. * * * The practice was in unison with the

severity of the law. The proceedings commenced against

Protagoras; a price set upon the head of Diagoras; the danger of

Alcibiades; Aristotle obliged to fly; Stilpo banished; Anaxagoras

hardly escaping death; Pericles himself, after all his services

to his country, and all the glory he had acquired, compelled to

appear before the tribunals and make his defence; * * a priestess

executed for having introduced strange gods; Socrates condemned

and drinking the hemlock, because he was accused of not

recognizing those of his country, &c.; these facts attest too

loudly, to be called in question, the religious intolerance of

the most humane and enlightened people in Greece.” Lettres de

quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 221. (Compare Bentley on

Freethinking, from which much of this is derived.)—M.

4th. The Romans.—The laws of Rome were not less express and

severe. The intolerance of foreign religions reaches, with the

Romans, as high as the laws of the twelve tables; the

prohibitions were afterwards renewed at different times.

Intolerance did not discontinue under the emperors; witness the

counsel of Mæcenas to Augustus. This counsel is so remarkable,

that I think it right to insert it entire. “Honor the gods

yourself,” says Mæcenas to Augustus, “in every way according to

the usage of your ancestors, and compel others to worship them.

Hate and punish those who introduce strange gods, not only for

the sake of the gods, (he who despises them will respect no one,)

but because those who introduce new gods engage a multitude of

persons in foreign laws and customs. From hence arise unions

bound by oaths and confederacies, and associations, things

dangerous to a monarchy.” Dion Cass. l. ii. c. 36. (But, though

some may differ from it, see Gibbon’s just observation on this

passage in Dion Cassius, ch. xvi. note 117; impugned, indeed, by

M. Guizot, note in loc.)—M.

Even the laws which the philosophers of Athens and of Rome wrote

for their imaginary republics are intolerant. Plato does not

leave to his citizens freedom of religious worship; and Cicero

expressly prohibits them from having other gods than those of the

state. Lettres de quelques Juifs a Mons. Voltaire, i. p. 226.—G.

According to M. Guizot’s just remarks, religious intolerance will

always ally itself with the passions of man, however different

those passions may be. In the instances quoted above, with the

Persians it was the pride of despotism; to conquer the gods of a

country was the last mark of subjugation. With the Egyptians, it

was the gross Fetichism of the superstitious populace, and the

local jealousy of neighboring towns. In Greece, persecution was

in general connected with political party; in Rome, with the

stern supremacy of the law and the interests of the state. Gibbon

has been mistaken in attributing to the tolerant spirit of

Paganism that which arose out of the peculiar circumstances of

the times. 1st. The decay of the old Polytheism, through the

progress of reason and intelligence, and the prevalence of

philosophical opinions among the higher orders.

2d. The Roman character, in which the political always

predominated over the religious party. The Romans were contented

with having bowed the world to a uniformity of subjection to

their power, and cared not for establishing the (to them) less

important uniformity of religion.—M.

1 (return) [ Dum Assyrios penes, Medosque, et Persas Oriens fuit,

despectissima pars servientium. Tacit. Hist. v. 8. Herodotus, who

visited Asia whilst it obeyed the last of those empires, slightly

mentions the Syrians of Palestine, who, according to their own

confession, had received from Egypt the rite of circumcision. See

l. ii. c. 104.]

2 (return) [ Diodorus Siculus, l. xl. Dion Cassius, l. xxxvii. p.

121. Tacit Hist. v. 1—9. Justin xxxvi. 2, 3.]

3 (return) [ Tradidit arcano quæcunque volumine Moses, Non

monstrare vias cadem nisi sacra colenti, Quæsitum ad fontem solos

deducere verpas. The letter of this law is not to be found in the

present volume of Moses. But the wise, the humane Maimonides

openly teaches that if an idolater fall into the water, a Jew

ought not to save him from instant death. See Basnage, Histoire

des Juifs, l. vi. c. 28. * Note: It is diametrically opposed to

its spirit and to its letter, see, among other passages, Deut. v.

18. 19, (God) “loveth the stranger in giving him food and

raiment. Love ye, therefore, the stranger: for ye were strangers

in the land of Egypt.” Comp. Lev. xxiii. 25. Juvenal is a

satirist, whose strong expressions can hardly be received as

historic evidence; and he wrote after the horrible cruelties of

the Romans, which, during and after the war, might give some

cause for the complete isolation of the Jew from the rest of the

world. The Jew was a bigot, but his religion was not the only

source of his bigotry. After how many centuries of mutual wrong

and hatred, which had still further estranged the Jew from

mankind, did Maimonides write?—M.]

4 (return) [ A Jewish sect, which indulged themselves in a sort

of occasional conformity, derived from Herod, by whose example

and authority they had been seduced, the name of Herodians. But

their numbers were so inconsiderable, and their duration so

short, that Josephus has not thought them worthy of his notice.

See Prideaux’s Connection, vol. ii. p. 285. * Note: The Herodians

were probably more of a political party than a religious sect,

though Gibbon is most likely right as to their occasional

conformity. See Hist. of the Jews, ii. 108.—M.]

5 (return) [ Cicero pro Flacco, c. 28. * Note: The edicts of

Julius Cæsar, and of some of the cities in Asia Minor (Krebs.

Decret. pro Judæis,) in favor of the nation in general, or of the

Asiatic Jews, speak a different language.—M.]

6 (return) [ Philo de Legatione. Augustus left a foundation for a

perpetual sacrifice. Yet he approved of the neglect which his

grandson Caius expressed towards the temple of Jerusalem. See

Sueton. in August. c. 93, and Casaubon’s notes on that passage.]

7 (return) [ See, in particular, Joseph. Antiquitat. xvii. 6,

xviii. 3; and de Bell. Judiac. i. 33, and ii. 9, edit. Havercamp.

* Note: This was during the government of Pontius Pilate. (Hist.

of Jews, ii. 156.) Probably in part to avoid this collision, the

Roman governor, in general, resided at Cæsarea.—M.]

8 (return) [ Jussi a Caio Cæsare, effigiem ejus in templo locare,

arma potius sumpsere. Tacit. Hist. v. 9. Philo and Josephus gave

a very circumstantial, but a very rhetorical, account of this

transaction, which exceedingly perplexed the governor of Syria.

At the first mention of this idolatrous proposal, King Agrippa

fainted away; and did not recover his senses until the third day.

(Hist. of Jews, ii. 181, &c.)]

This inflexible perseverance, which appeared so odious or so

ridiculous to the ancient world, assumes a more awful character,

since Providence has deigned to reveal to us the mysterious

history of the chosen people. But the devout and even scrupulous

attachment to the Mosaic religion, so conspicuous among the Jews

who lived under the second temple, becomes still more surprising,

if it is compared with the stubborn incredulity of their

forefathers. When the law was given in thunder from Mount Sinai,

when the tides of the ocean and the course of the planets were

suspended for the convenience of the Israelites, and when

temporal rewards and punishments were the immediate consequences

of their piety or disobedience, they perpetually relapsed into

rebellion against the visible majesty of their Divine King,

placed the idols of the nations in the sanctuary of Jehovah, and

imitated every fantastic ceremony that was practised in the tents

of the Arabs, or in the cities of Phœnicia. 9 As the protection

of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from the ungrateful race,

their faith acquired a proportionable degree of vigor and purity.

The contemporaries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless

indifference the most amazing miracles. Under the pressure of

every calamity, the belief of those miracles has preserved the

Jews of a later period from the universal contagion of idolatry;

and in contradiction to every known principle of the human mind,

that singular people seems to have yielded a stronger and more

ready assent to the traditions of their remote ancestors, than to

the evidence of their own senses. 10

9 (return) [ For the enumeration of the Syrian and Arabian

deities, it may be observed, that Milton has comprised in one

hundred and thirty very beautiful lines the two large and learned

syntagmas which Selden had composed on that abstruse subject.]

10 (return) [ “How long will this people provoke me? and how long

will it be ere they believe me, for all the signs which I have

shown among them?” (Numbers xiv. 11.) It would be easy, but it

would be unbecoming, to justify the complaint of the Deity from

the whole tenor of the Mosaic history. Note: Among a rude and

barbarous people, religious impressions are easily made, and are

as soon effaced. The ignorance which multiplies imaginary

wonders, would weaken and destroy the effect of real miracle. At

the period of the Jewish history, referred to in the passage from

Numbers, their fears predominated over their faith,—the fears of

an unwarlike people, just rescued from debasing slavery, and

commanded to attack a fierce, a well-armed, a gigantic, and a far

more numerous race, the inhabitants of Canaan. As to the frequent

apostasy of the Jews, their religion was beyond their state of

civilization. Nor is it uncommon for a people to cling with

passionate attachment to that of which, at first, they could not

appreciate the value. Patriotism and national pride will contend,

even to death, for political rights which have been forced upon a

reluctant people. The Christian may at least retort, with

justice, that the great sign of his religion, the resurrection of

Jesus, was most ardently believed, and most resolutely asserted,

by the eye witnesses of the fact.—M.]

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was

never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the

number of proselytes was never much superior to that of

apostates. The divine promises were originally made, and the

distinguishing rite of circumcision was enjoined, to a single

family. When the posterity of Abraham had multiplied like the

sands of the sea, the Deity, from whose mouth they received a

system of laws and ceremonies, declared himself the proper and as

it were the national God of Israel; and with the most jealous

care separated his favorite people from the rest of mankind. The

conquest of the land of Canaan was accompanied with so many

wonderful and with so many bloody circumstances, that the

victorious Jews were left in a state of irreconcilable hostility

with all their neighbors. They had been commanded to extirpate

some of the most idolatrous tribes, and the execution of the

divine will had seldom been retarded by the weakness of humanity.

With the other nations they were forbidden to contract any

marriages or alliances; and the prohibition of receiving them

into the congregation, which in some cases was perpetual, almost

always extended to the third, to the seventh, or even to the

tenth generation. The obligation of preaching to the Gentiles the

faith of Moses had never been inculcated as a precept of the law,

nor were the Jews inclined to impose it on themselves as a

voluntary duty.

In the admission of new citizens that unsocial people was

actuated by the selfish vanity of the Greeks, rather than by the

generous policy of Rome. The descendants of Abraham were

flattered by the opinion that they alone were the heirs of the

covenant, and they were apprehensive of diminishing the value of

their inheritance by sharing it too easily with the strangers of

the earth. A larger acquaintance with mankind extended their

knowledge without correcting their prejudices; and whenever the

God of Israel acquired any new votaries, he was much more

indebted to the inconstant humor of polytheism than to the active

zeal of his own missionaries. 11 The religion of Moses seems to

be instituted for a particular country as well as for a single

nation; and if a strict obedience had been paid to the order,

that every male, three times in the year, should present himself

before the Lord Jehovah, it would have been impossible that the

Jews could ever have spread themselves beyond the narrow limits

of the promised land. 12 That obstacle was indeed removed by the

destruction of the temple of Jerusalem; but the most considerable

part of the Jewish religion was involved in its destruction; and

the Pagans, who had long wondered at the strange report of an

empty sanctuary, 13 were at a loss to discover what could be the

object, or what could be the instruments, of a worship which was

destitute of temples and of altars, of priests and of sacrifices.

Yet even in their fallen state, the Jews, still asserting their

lofty and exclusive privileges, shunned, instead of courting, the

society of strangers. They still insisted with inflexible rigor

on those parts of the law which it was in their power to

practise. Their peculiar distinctions of days, of meats, and a

variety of trivial though burdensome observances, were so many

objects of disgust and aversion for the other nations, to whose

habits and prejudices they were diametrically opposite. The

painful and even dangerous rite of circumcision was alone capable

of repelling a willing proselyte from the door of the synagogue.

14

11 (return) [ All that relates to the Jewish proselytes has been

very ably by Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 6, 7.]

12 (return) [ See Exod. xxiv. 23, Deut. xvi. 16, the

commentators, and a very sensible note in the Universal History,

vol. i. p. 603, edit. fol.]

13 (return) [ When Pompey, using or abusing the right of

conquest, entered into the Holy of Holies, it was observed with

amazement, “Nulli intus Deum effigie, vacuam sedem et inania

arcana.” Tacit. Hist. v. 9. It was a popular saying, with regard

to the Jews, “Nil præter nubes et coeli numen adorant.”]

14 (return) [ A second kind of circumcision was inflicted on a

Samaritan or Egyptian proselyte. The sullen indifference of the

Talmudists, with respect to the conversion of strangers, may be

seen in Basnage Histoire des Juifs, l. xi. c. 6.]

Under these circumstances, Christianity offered itself to the

world, armed with the strength of the Mosaic law, and delivered

from the weight of its fetters. An exclusive zeal for the truth

of religion, and the unity of God, was as carefully inculcated in

the new as in the ancient system; and whatever was now revealed

to mankind concerning the nature and designs of the Supreme Being

was fitted to increase their reverence for that mysterious

doctrine. The divine authority of Moses and the prophets was

admitted, and even established, as the firmest basis of

Christianity. From the beginning of the world, an uninterrupted

series of predictions had announced and prepared the

long-expected coming of the Messiah, who, in compliance with the

gross apprehensions of the Jews, had been more frequently

represented under the character of a King and Conqueror, than

under that of a Prophet, a Martyr, and the Son of God. By his

expiatory sacrifice, the imperfect sacrifices of the temple were

at once consummated and abolished. The ceremonial law, which

consisted only of types and figures, was succeeded by a pure and

spiritual worship equally adapted to all climates, as well as to

every condition of mankind; and to the initiation of blood was

substituted a more harmless initiation of water. The promise of

divine favor, instead of being partially confined to the

posterity of Abraham, was universally proposed to the freeman and

the slave, to the Greek and to the barbarian, to the Jew and to

the Gentile. Every privilege that could raise the proselyte from

earth to heaven, that could exalt his devotion, secure his

happiness, or even gratify that secret pride which, under the

semblance of devotion, insinuates itself into the human heart,

was still reserved for the members of the Christian church; but

at the same time all mankind was permitted, and even solicited,

to accept the glorious distinction, which was not only proffered

as a favor, but imposed as an obligation. It became the most

sacred duty of a new convert to diffuse among his friends and

relations the inestimable blessing which he had received, and to

warn them against a refusal that would be severely punished as a

criminal disobedience to the will of a benevolent but

all-powerful Deity.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part II.

The enfranchisement of the church from the bonds of the synagogue

was a work, however, of some time and of some difficulty. The

Jewish converts, who acknowledged Jesus in the character of the

Messiah foretold by their ancient oracles, respected him as a

prophetic teacher of virtue and religion; but they obstinately

adhered to the ceremonies of their ancestors, and were desirous

of imposing them on the Gentiles, who continually augmented the

number of believers. These Judaizing Christians seem to have

argued with some degree of plausibility from the divine origin of

the Mosaic law, and from the immutable perfections of its great

Author. They affirmed, that if the Being, who is the same through

all eternity, had designed to abolish those sacred rites which

had served to distinguish his chosen people, the repeal of them

would have been no less clear and solemn than their first

promulgation: _that_, instead of those frequent declarations,

which either suppose or assert the perpetuity of the Mosaic

religion, it would have been represented as a provisionary scheme

intended to last only to the coming of the Messiah, who should

instruct mankind in a more perfect mode of faith and of worship:

15 _that_ the Messiah himself, and his disciples who conversed

with him on earth, instead of authorizing by their example the

most minute observances of the Mosaic law, 16 would have

published to the world the abolition of those useless and

obsolete ceremonies, without suffering Christianity to remain

during so many years obscurely confounded among the sects of the

Jewish church. Arguments like these appear to have been used in

the defence of the expiring cause of the Mosaic law; but the

industry of our learned divines has abundantly explained the

ambiguous language of the Old Testament, and the ambiguous

conduct of the apostolic teachers. It was proper gradually to

unfold the system of the gospel, and to pronounce, with the

utmost caution and tenderness, a sentence of condemnation so

repugnant to the inclination and prejudices of the believing

Jews.

15 (return) [ These arguments were urged with great ingenuity by

the Jew Orobio, and refuted with equal ingenuity and candor by

the Christian Limborch. See the Amica Collatio, (it well deserves

that name,) or account of the dispute between them.]

16 (return) [ Jesus... circumcisus erat; cibis utebatur Judaicis;

vestitu simili; purgatos scabie mittebat ad sacerdotes; Paschata

et alios dies festos religiose observabat: Si quos sanavit

sabbatho, ostendit non tantum ex lege, sed et exceptis

sententiis, talia opera sabbatho non interdicta. Grotius de

Veritate Religionis Christianæ, l. v. c. 7. A little afterwards,

(c. 12,) he expatiates on the condescension of the apostles.]

The history of the church of Jerusalem affords a lively proof of

the necessity of those precautions, and of the deep impression

which the Jewish religion had made on the minds of its sectaries.

The first fifteen bishops of Jerusalem were all circumcised Jews;

and the congregation over which they presided united the law of

Moses with the doctrine of Christ. 17 It was natural that the

primitive tradition of a church which was founded only forty days

after the death of Christ, and was governed almost as many years

under the immediate inspection of his apostle, should be received

as the standard of orthodoxy. The distant churches very

frequently appealed to the authority of their venerable Parent,

and relieved her distresses by a liberal contribution of alms.

But when numerous and opulent societies were established in the

great cities of the empire, in Antioch, Alexandria, Ephesus,

Corinth, and Rome, the reverence which Jerusalem had inspired to

all the Christian colonies insensibly diminished. 18b The Jewish

converts, or, as they were afterwards called, the Nazarenes, who

had laid the foundations of the church, soon found themselves

overwhelmed by the increasing multitudes, that from all the

various religions of polytheism enlisted under the banner of

Christ: and the Gentiles, who, with the approbation of their

peculiar apostle, had rejected the intolerable weight of the

Mosaic ceremonies, at length refused to their more scrupulous

brethren the same toleration which at first they had humbly

solicited for their own practice. The ruin of the temple of the

city, and of the public religion of the Jews, was severely felt

by the Nazarenes; as in their manners, though not in their faith,

they maintained so intimate a connection with their impious

countrymen, whose misfortunes were attributed by the Pagans to

the contempt, and more justly ascribed by the Christians to the

wrath, of the Supreme Deity. The Nazarenes retired from the ruins

of Jerusalem 18 to the little town of Pella beyond the Jordan,

where that ancient church languished above sixty years in

solitude and obscurity. 19 They still enjoyed the comfort of

making frequent and devout visits to the _Holy City_, and the

hope of being one day restored to those seats which both nature

and religion taught them to love as well as to revere. But at

length, under the reign of Hadrian, the desperate fanaticism of

the Jews filled up the measure of their calamities; and the

Romans, exasperated by their repeated rebellions, exercised the

rights of victory with unusual rigor. The emperor founded, under

the name of Ælia Capitolina, a new city on Mount Sion, 20 to

which he gave the privileges of a colony; and denouncing the

severest penalties against any of the Jewish people who should

dare to approach its precincts, he fixed a vigilant garrison of a

Roman cohort to enforce the execution of his orders. The

Nazarenes had only one way left to escape the common

proscription, and the force of truth was on this occasion

assisted by the influence of temporal advantages. They elected

Marcus for their bishop, a prelate of the race of the Gentiles,

and most probably a native either of Italy or of some of the

Latin provinces. At his persuasion, the most considerable part of

the congregation renounced the Mosaic law, in the practice of

which they had persevered above a century. By this sacrifice of

their habits and prejudices, they purchased a free admission into

the colony of Hadrian, and more firmly cemented their union with

the Catholic church. 21

17 (return) [ Pæne omnes Christum Deum sub legis observatione

credebant Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31. See Eusebius, Hist.

Ecclesiast. l. iv. c. 5.]

18b (return) [Footnote 18b: Mosheim de Rebus Christianis ante

Constantinum Magnum, page 153. In this masterly performance,

which I shall often have occasion to quote he enters much more

fully into the state of the primitive church than he has an

opportunity of doing in his General History.]

18 (return) [ This is incorrect: all the traditions concur in

placing the abandonment of the city by the Christians, not only

before it was in ruins, but before the seige had commenced.

Euseb. loc. cit., and Le Clerc.—M.]

19 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iii. c. 5. Le Clerc, Hist. Ecclesiast.

p. 605. During this occasional absence, the bishop and church of

Pella still retained the title of Jerusalem. In the same manner,

the Roman pontiffs resided seventy years at Avignon; and the

patriarchs of Alexandria have long since transferred their

episcopal seat to Cairo.]

20 (return) [ Dion Cassius, l. lxix. The exile of the Jewish

nation from Jerusalem is attested by Aristo of Pella, (apud

Euseb. l. iv. c. 6,) and is mentioned by several ecclesiastical

writers; though some of them too hastily extend this interdiction

to the whole country of Palestine.]

21 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 6. Sulpicius Severus, ii. 31.

By comparing their unsatisfactory accounts, Mosheim (p. 327, &c.)

has drawn out a very distinct representation of the circumstances

and motives of this revolution.]

When the name and honors of the church of Jerusalem had been

restored to Mount Sion, the crimes of heresy and schism were

imputed to the obscure remnant of the Nazarenes, which refused to

accompany their Latin bishop. They still preserved their former

habitation of Pella, spread themselves into the villages adjacent

to Damascus, and formed an inconsiderable church in the city of

Berœa, or, as it is now called, of Aleppo, in Syria. 22 The name

of Nazarenes was deemed too honorable for those Christian Jews,

and they soon received, from the supposed poverty of their

understanding, as well as of their condition, the contemptuous

epithet of Ebionites. 23 In a few years after the return of the

church of Jerusalem, it became a matter of doubt and controversy,

whether a man who sincerely acknowledged Jesus as the Messiah,

but who still continued to observe the law of Moses, could

possibly hope for salvation. The humane temper of Justin Martyr

inclined him to answer this question in the affirmative; and

though he expressed himself with the most guarded diffidence, he

ventured to determine in favor of such an imperfect Christian, if

he were content to practise the Mosaic ceremonies, without

pretending to assert their general use or necessity. But when

Justin was pressed to declare the sentiment of the church, he

confessed that there were very many among the orthodox

Christians, who not only excluded their Judaizing brethren from

the hope of salvation, but who declined any intercourse with them

in the common offices of friendship, hospitality, and social

life. 24 The more rigorous opinion prevailed, as it was natural

to expect, over the milder; and an eternal bar of separation was

fixed between the disciples of Moses and those of Christ. The

unfortunate Ebionites, rejected from one religion as apostates,

and from the other as heretics, found themselves compelled to

assume a more decided character; and although some traces of that

obsolete sect may be discovered as late as the fourth century,

they insensibly melted away, either into the church or the

synagogue. 25

22 (return) [ Le Clerc (Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477, 535) seems to

have collected from Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, and other

writers, all the principal circumstances that relate to the

Nazarenes or Ebionites. The nature of their opinions soon divided

them into a stricter and a milder sect; and there is some reason

to conjecture, that the family of Jesus Christ remained members,

at least, of the latter and more moderate party.]

23 (return) [ Some writers have been pleased to create an Ebion,

the imaginary author of their sect and name. But we can more

safely rely on the learned Eusebius than on the vehement

Tertullian, or the credulous Epiphanius. According to Le Clerc,

the Hebrew word Ebjonim may be translated into Latin by that of

Pauperes. See Hist. Ecclesiast. p. 477. * Note: The opinion of Le

Clerc is generally admitted; but Neander has suggested some good

reasons for supposing that this term only applied to poverty of

condition. The obscure history of their tenets and divisions, is

clearly and rationally traced in his History of the Church, vol.

i. part ii. p. 612, &c., Germ. edit.—M.]

24 (return) [ See the very curious Dialogue of Justin Martyr with

the Jew Tryphon. The conference between them was held at Ephesus,

in the reign of Antoninus Pius, and about twenty years after the

return of the church of Pella to Jerusalem. For this date consult

the accurate note of Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom.

ii. p. 511. * Note: Justin Martyr makes an important distinction,

which Gibbon has neglected to notice. * * * There were some who

were not content with observing the Mosaic law themselves, but

enforced the same observance, as necessary to salvation, upon the

heathen converts, and refused all social intercourse with them if

they did not conform to the law. Justin Martyr himself freely

admits those who kept the law themselves to Christian communion,

though he acknowledges that some, not the Church, thought

otherwise; of the other party, he himself thought less favorably.

The former by some are considered the Nazarenes the atter the

Ebionites—G and M.]

25 (return) [ Of all the systems of Christianity, that of

Abyssinia is the only one which still adheres to the Mosaic

rites. (Geddes’s Church History of Æthiopia, and Dissertations de

La Grand sur la Relation du P. Lobo.) The eunuch of the queen

Candace might suggest some suspicious; but as we are assured

(Socrates, i. 19. Sozomen, ii. 24. Ludolphus, p. 281) that the

Æthiopians were not converted till the fourth century, it is more

reasonable to believe that they respected the sabbath, and

distinguished the forbidden meats, in imitation of the Jews, who,

in a very early period, were seated on both sides of the Red Sea.

Circumcision had been practised by the most ancient Æthiopians,

from motives of health and cleanliness, which seem to be

explained in the Recherches Philosophiques sur les Americains,

tom. ii. p. 117.]

While the orthodox church preserved a just medium between

excessive veneration and improper contempt for the law of Moses,

the various heretics deviated into equal but opposite extremes of

error and extravagance. From the acknowledged truth of the Jewish

religion, the Ebionites had concluded that it could never be

abolished. From its supposed imperfections, the Gnostics as

hastily inferred that it never was instituted by the wisdom of

the Deity. There are some objections against the authority of

Moses and the prophets, which too readily present themselves to

the sceptical mind; though they can only be derived from our

ignorance of remote antiquity, and from our incapacity to form an

adequate judgment of the divine economy. These objections were

eagerly embraced and as petulantly urged by the vain science of

the Gnostics. 26 As those heretics were, for the most part,

averse to the pleasures of sense, they morosely arraigned the

polygamy of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the

seraglio of Solomon. The conquest of the land of Canaan, and the

extirpation of the unsuspecting natives, they were at a loss how

to reconcile with the common notions of humanity and justice. 261

But when they recollected the sanguinary list of murders, of

executions, and of massacres, which stain almost every page of

the Jewish annals, they acknowledged that the barbarians of

Palestine had exercised as much compassion towards their

idolatrous enemies, as they had ever shown to their friends or

countrymen. 27 Passing from the sectaries of the law to the law

itself, they asserted that it was impossible that a religion

which consisted only of bloody sacrifices and trifling

ceremonies, and whose rewards as well as punishments were all of

a carnal and temporal nature, could inspire the love of virtue,

or restrain the impetuosity of passion. The Mosaic account of the

creation and fall of man was treated with profane derision by the

Gnostics, who would not listen with patience to the repose of the

Deity after six days’ labor, to the rib of Adam, the garden of

Eden, the trees of life and of knowledge, the speaking serpent,

the forbidden fruit, and the condemnation pronounced against

human kind for the venial offence of their first progenitors. 28

The God of Israel was impiously represented by the Gnostics as a

being liable to passion and to error, capricious in his favor,

implacable in his resentment, meanly jealous of his superstitious

worship, and confining his partial providence to a single people,

and to this transitory life. In such a character they could

discover none of the features of the wise and omnipotent Father

of the universe. 29 They allowed that the religion of the Jews

was somewhat less criminal than the idolatry of the Gentiles; but

it was their fundamental doctrine that the Christ whom they

adored as the first and brightest emanation of the Deity appeared

upon earth to rescue mankind from their various errors, and to

reveal a new system of truth and perfection. The most learned of

the fathers, by a very singular condescension, have imprudently

admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. 291 Acknowledging that

the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as

well as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable

behind the ample veil of allegory, which they carefully spread

over every tender part of the Mosaic dispensation. 30

26 (return) [ Beausobre, Histoire du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 3, has

stated their objections, particularly those of Faustus, the

adversary of Augustin, with the most learned impartiality.]

261 (return) [ On the “war law” of the Jews, see Hist. of Jews,

i. 137.—M.]

27 (return) [ Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in

promptu: adversus amnes alios hostile odium. Tacit. Hist. v. 4.

Surely Tacitus had seen the Jews with too favorable an eye. The

perusal of Josephus must have destroyed the antithesis. * Note:

Few writers have suspected Tacitus of partiality towards the

Jews. The whole later history of the Jews illustrates as well

their strong feelings of humanity to their brethren, as their

hostility to the rest of mankind. The character and the position

of Josephus with the Roman authorities, must be kept in mind

during the perusal of his History. Perhaps he has not exaggerated

the ferocity and fanaticism of the Jews at that time; but

insurrectionary warfare is not the best school for the humaner

virtues, and much must be allowed for the grinding tyranny of the

later Roman governors. See Hist. of Jews, ii. 254.—M.]

28 (return) [ Dr. Burnet (Archæologia, l. ii. c. 7) has discussed

the first chapters of Genesis with too much wit and freedom. *

Note: Dr. Burnet apologized for the levity with which he had

conducted some of his arguments, by the excuse that he wrote in a

learned language for scholars alone, not for the vulgar. Whatever

may be thought of his success in tracing an Eastern allegory in

the first chapters of Genesis, his other works prove him to have

been a man of great genius, and of sincere piety.—M]

29 (return) [ The milder Gnostics considered Jehovah, the

Creator, as a Being of a mixed nature between God and the Dæmon.

Others confounded him with an evil principle. Consult the second

century of the general history of Mosheim, which gives a very

distinct, though concise, account of their strange opinions on

this subject.]

291 (return) [ The Gnostics, and the historian who has stated

these plausible objections with so much force as almost to make

them his own, would have shown a more considerate and not less

reasonable philosophy, if they had considered the religion of

Moses with reference to the age in which it was promulgated; if

they had done justice to its sublime as well as its more

imperfect views of the divine nature; the humane and civilizing

provisions of the Hebrew law, as well as those adapted for an

infant and barbarous people. See Hist of Jews, i. 36, 37, &c.—M.]

30 (return) [ See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme, l. i. c. 4.

Origen and St. Augustin were among the allegorists.]

It has been remarked with more ingenuity than truth, that the

virgin purity of the church was never violated by schism or

heresy before the reign of Trajan or Hadrian, about one hundred

years after the death of Christ. 31 We may observe with much more

propriety, that, during that period, the disciples of the Messiah

were indulged in a freer latitude, both of faith and practice,

than has ever been allowed in succeeding ages. As the terms of

communion were insensibly narrowed, and the spiritual authority

of the prevailing party was exercised with increasing severity,

many of its most respectable adherents, who were called upon to

renounce, were provoked to assert their private opinions, to

pursue the consequences of their mistaken principles, and openly

to erect the standard of rebellion against the unity of the

church. The Gnostics were distinguished as the most polite, the

most learned, and the most wealthy of the Christian name; and

that general appellation, which expressed a superiority of

knowledge, was either assumed by their own pride, or ironically

bestowed by the envy of their adversaries. They were almost

without exception of the race of the Gentiles, and their

principal founders seem to have been natives of Syria or Egypt,

where the warmth of the climate disposes both the mind and the

body to indolent and contemplative devotion. The Gnostics blended

with the faith of Christ many sublime but obscure tenets, which

they derived from oriental philosophy, and even from the religion

of Zoroaster, concerning the eternity of matter, the existence of

two principles, and the mysterious hierarchy of the invisible

world. 32 As soon as they launched out into that vast abyss, they

delivered themselves to the guidance of a disordered imagination;

and as the paths of error are various and infinite, the Gnostics

were imperceptibly divided into more than fifty particular sects,

33 of whom the most celebrated appear to have been the

Basilidians, the Valentinians, the Marcionites, and, in a still

later period, the Manichæans. Each of these sects could boast of

its bishops and congregations, of its doctors and martyrs; 34

and, instead of the Four Gospels adopted by the church, 341 the

heretics produced a multitude of histories, in which the actions

and discourses of Christ and of his apostles were adapted to

their respective tenets. 35 The success of the Gnostics was rapid

and extensive. 36 They covered Asia and Egypt, established

themselves in Rome, and sometimes penetrated into the provinces

of the West. For the most part they arose in the second century,

flourished during the third, and were suppressed in the fourth or

fifth, by the prevalence of more fashionable controversies, and

by the superior ascendant of the reigning power. Though they

constantly disturbed the peace, and frequently disgraced the

name, of religion, they contributed to assist rather than to

retard the progress of Christianity. The Gentile converts, whose

strongest objections and prejudices were directed against the law

of Moses, could find admission into many Christian societies,

which required not from their untutored mind any belief of an

antecedent revelation. Their faith was insensibly fortified and

enlarged, and the church was ultimately benefited by the

conquests of its most inveterate enemies. 37

31 (return) [ Hegesippus, ap. Euseb. l. iii. 32, iv. 22. Clemens

Alexandrin Stromat. vii. 17. * Note: The assertion of Hegesippus

is not so positive: it is sufficient to read the whole passage in

Eusebius, to see that the former part is modified by the matter.

Hegesippus adds, that up to this period the church had remained

pure and immaculate as a virgin. Those who labored to corrupt the

doctrines of the gospel worked as yet in obscurity—G]

32 (return) [ In the account of the Gnostics of the second and

third centuries, Mosheim is ingenious and candid; Le Clerc dull,

but exact; Beausobre almost always an apologist; and it is much

to be feared that the primitive fathers are very frequently

calumniators. * Note The Histoire du Gnosticisme of M. Matter is

at once the fairest and most complete account of these sects.—M.]

33 (return) [ See the catalogues of Irenæus and Epiphanius. It

must indeed be allowed, that those writers were inclined to

multiply the number of sects which opposed the unity of the

church.]

34 (return) [ Eusebius, l. iv. c. 15. Sozomen, l. ii. c. 32. See

in Bayle, in the article of Marcion, a curious detail of a

dispute on that subject. It should seem that some of the Gnostics

(the Basilidians) declined, and even refused the honor of

Martyrdom. Their reasons were singular and abstruse. See Mosheim,

p. 539.]

341 (return) [ M. Hahn has restored the Marcionite Gospel with

great ingenuity. His work is reprinted in Thilo. Codex. Apoc.

Nov. Test. vol. i.—M.]

35 (return) [ See a very remarkable passage of Origen, (Proem. ad

Lucam.) That indefatigable writer, who had consumed his life in

the study of the Scriptures, relies for their authenticity on the

inspired authority of the church. It was impossible that the

Gnostics could receive our present Gospels, many parts of which

(particularly in the resurrection of Christ) are directly, and as

it might seem designedly, pointed against their favorite tenets.

It is therefore somewhat singular that Ignatius (Epist. ad Smyrn.

Patr. Apostol. tom. ii. p. 34) should choose to employ a vague

and doubtful tradition, instead of quoting the certain testimony

of the evangelists. Note: Bishop Pearson has attempted very

happily to explain this singularity.’ The first Christians were

acquainted with a number of sayings of Jesus Christ, which are

not related in our Gospels, and indeed have never been written.

Why might not St. Ignatius, who had lived with the apostles or

their disciples, repeat in other words that which St. Luke has

related, particularly at a time when, being in prison, he could

have the Gospels at hand? Pearson, Vind Ign. pp. 2, 9 p. 396 in

tom. ii. Patres Apost. ed. Coteler—G.]

36 (return) [ Faciunt favos et vespæ; faciunt ecclesias et

Marcionitæ, is the strong expression of Tertullian, which I am

obliged to quote from memory. In the time of Epiphanius (advers.

Hæreses, p. 302) the Marcionites were very numerous in Italy,

Syria, Egypt, Arabia, and Persia.]

37 (return) [ Augustin is a memorable instance of this gradual

progress from reason to faith. He was, during several years,

engaged in the Manichæar sect.]

But whatever difference of opinion might subsist between the

Orthodox, the Ebionites, and the Gnostics, concerning the

divinity or the obligation of the Mosaic law, they were all

equally animated by the same exclusive zeal, and by the same

abhorrence for idolatry, which had distinguished the Jews from

the other nations of the ancient world. The philosopher, who

considered the system of polytheism as a composition of human

fraud and error, could disguise a smile of contempt under the

mask of devotion, without apprehending that either the mockery,

or the compliance, would expose him to the resentment of any

invisible, or, as he conceived them, imaginary powers. But the

established religions of Paganism were seen by the primitive

Christians in a much more odious and formidable light. It was the

universal sentiment both of the church and of heretics, that the

dæmons were the authors, the patrons, and the objects of

idolatry. 38 Those rebellious spirits who had been degraded from

the rank of angels, and cast down into the infernal pit, were

still permitted to roam upon earth, to torment the bodies, and to

seduce the minds, of sinful men. The dæmons soon discovered and

abused the natural propensity of the human heart towards

devotion, and artfully withdrawing the adoration of mankind from

their Creator, they usurped the place and honors of the Supreme

Deity. By the success of their malicious contrivances, they at

once gratified their own vanity and revenge, and obtained the

only comfort of which they were yet susceptible, the hope of

involving the human species in the participation of their guilt

and misery. It was confessed, or at least it was imagined, that

they had distributed among themselves the most important

characters of polytheism, one dæmon assuming the name and

attributes of Jupiter, another of Æsculapius, a third of Venus,

and a fourth perhaps of Apollo; 39 and that, by the advantage of

their long experience and ærial nature, they were enabled to

execute, with sufficient skill and dignity, the parts which they

had undertaken. They lurked in the temples, instituted festivals

and sacrifices, invented fables, pronounced oracles, and were

frequently allowed to perform miracles. The Christians, who, by

the interposition of evil spirits, could so readily explain every

præternatural appearance, were disposed and even desirous to

admit the most extravagant fictions of the Pagan mythology. But

the belief of the Christian was accompanied with horror. The most

trifling mark of respect to the national worship he considered as

a direct homage yielded to the dæmon, and as an act of rebellion

against the majesty of God.

38 (return) [ The unanimous sentiment of the primitive church is

very clearly explained by Justin Martyr, Apolog. Major, by

Athenagoras, Legat. c. 22. &c., and by Lactantius, Institut.

Divin. ii. 14—19.]

39 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) alleges the confession

of the dæmons themselves as often as they were tormented by the

Christian exorcists]

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part III.

In consequence of this opinion, it was the first but arduous duty

of a Christian to preserve himself pure and undefiled by the

practice of idolatry. The religion of the nations was not merely

a speculative doctrine professed in the schools or preached in

the temples. The innumerable deities and rites of polytheism were

closely interwoven with every circumstance of business or

pleasure, of public or of private life, and it seemed impossible

to escape the observance of them, without, at the same time,

renouncing the commerce of mankind, and all the offices and

amusements of society. 40 The important transactions of peace and

war were prepared or concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the

magistrate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged to preside

or to participate. 41 The public spectacles were an essential

part of the cheerful devotion of the Pagans, and the gods were

supposed to accept, as the most grateful offering, the games that

the prince and people celebrated in honor of their peculiar

festivals. 42 The Christians, who with pious horror avoided the

abomination of the circus or the theatre, found himself

encompassed with infernal snares in every convivial

entertainment, as often as his friends, invoking the hospitable

deities, poured out libations to each other’s happiness. 43 When

the bride, struggling with well-affected reluctance, was forced

in hymenæal pomp over the threshold of her new habitation, 44 or

when the sad procession of the dead slowly moved towards the

funeral pile, 45 the Christian, on these interesting occasions,

was compelled to desert the persons who were the dearest to him,

rather than contract the guilt inherent to those impious

ceremonies. Every art and every trade that was in the least

concerned in the framing or adorning of idols was polluted by the

stain of idolatry; 46 a severe sentence, since it devoted to

eternal misery the far greater part of the community, which is

employed in the exercise of liberal or mechanic professions. If

we cast our eyes over the numerous remains of antiquity, we shall

perceive, that besides the immediate representations of the gods,

and the holy instruments of their worship, the elegant forms and

agreeable fictions consecrated by the imagination of the Greeks,

were introduced as the richest ornaments of the houses, the

dress, and the furniture of the Pagans. 47 Even the arts of music

and painting, of eloquence and poetry, flowed from the same

impure origin. In the style of the fathers, Apollo and the Muses

were the organs of the infernal spirit; Homer and Virgil were the

most eminent of his servants; and the beautiful mythology which

pervades and animates the compositions of their genius, is

destined to celebrate the glory of the dæmons. Even the common

language of Greece and Rome abounded with familiar but impious

expressions, which the imprudent Christian might too carelessly

utter, or too patiently hear. 48

40 (return) [ Tertullian has written a most severe treatise

against idolatry, to caution his brethren against the hourly

danger of incurring that guilt. Recogita sylvam, et quantæ

latitant spinæ. De Corona Militis, c. 10.]

41 (return) [ The Roman senate was always held in a temple or

consecrated place. (Aulus Gellius, xiv. 7.) Before they entered

on business, every senator dropped some wine and frankincense on

the altar. Sueton. in August. c. 35.]

42 (return) [ See Tertullian, De Spectaculis. This severe

reformer shows no more indulgence to a tragedy of Euripides, than

to a combat of gladiators. The dress of the actors particularly

offends him. By the use of the lofty buskin, they impiously

strive to add a cubit to their stature. c. 23.]

43 (return) [ The ancient practice of concluding the

entertainment with libations, may be found in every classic.

Socrates and Seneca, in their last moments, made a noble

application of this custom. Postquam stagnum, calidæ aquæ

introiit, respergens proximos servorum, addita voce, libare se

liquorem illum Jovi Liberatori. Tacit. Annal. xv. 64.]

44 (return) [ See the elegant but idolatrous hymn of Catullus, on

the nuptials of Manlius and Julia. O Hymen, Hymenæe Io! Quis huic

Deo compararier ausit?]

45 (return) [ The ancient funerals (in those of Misenus and

Pallas) are no less accurately described by Virgil, than they are

illustrated by his commentator Servius. The pile itself was an

altar, the flames were fed with the blood of victims, and all the

assistants were sprinkled with lustral water.]

46 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 11. * Note: The

exaggerated and declamatory opinions of Tertullian ought not to

be taken as the general sentiment of the early Christians. Gibbon

has too often allowed himself to consider the peculiar notions of

certain Fathers of the Church as inherent in Christianity. This

is not accurate.—G.]

47 (return) [ See every part of Montfaucon’s Antiquities. Even

the reverses of the Greek and Roman coins were frequently of an

idolatrous nature. Here indeed the scruples of the Christian were

suspended by a stronger passion. Note: All this scrupulous nicety

is at variance with the decision of St. Paul about meat offered

to idols, 1, Cor. x. 21— 32.—M.]

48 (return) [ Tertullian de Idololatria, c. 20, 21, 22. If a

Pagan friend (on the occasion perhaps of sneezing) used the

familiar expression of “Jupiter bless you,” the Christian was

obliged to protest against the divinity of Jupiter.]

The dangerous temptations which on every side lurked in ambush to

surprise the unguarded believer, assailed him with redoubled

violence on the days of solemn festivals. So artfully were they

framed and disposed throughout the year, that superstition always

wore the appearance of pleasure, and often of virtue. Some of the

most sacred festivals in the Roman ritual were destined to salute

the new calends of January with vows of public and private

felicity; to indulge the pious remembrance of the dead and

living; to ascertain the inviolable bounds of property; to hail,

on the return of spring, the genial powers of fecundity; to

perpetuate the two memorable æras of Rome, the foundation of the

city and that of the republic; and to restore, during the humane

license of the Saturnalia, the primitive equality of mankind.

Some idea may be conceived of the abhorrence of the Christians

for such impious ceremonies, by the scrupulous delicacy which

they displayed on a much less alarming occasion. On days of

general festivity it was the custom of the ancients to adorn

their doors with lamps and with branches of laurel, and to crown

their heads with a garland of flowers. This innocent and elegant

practice might perhaps have been tolerated as a mere civil

institution. But it most unluckily happened that the doors were

under the protection of the household gods, that the laurel was

sacred to the lover of Daphne, and that garlands of flowers,

though frequently worn as a symbol either of joy or mourning, had

been dedicated in their first origin to the service of

superstition. The trembling Christians, who were persuaded in

this instance to comply with the fashion of their country, and

the commands of the magistrate, labored under the most gloomy

apprehensions, from the reproaches of his own conscience, the

censures of the church, and the denunciations of divine

vengeance. 49 50

49 (return) [ Consult the most labored work of Ovid, his

imperfect Fasti. He finished no more than the first six months of

the year. The compilation of Macrobius is called the Saturnalia,

but it is only a small part of the first book that bears any

relation to the title.]

50 (return) [ Tertullian has composed a defence, or rather

panegyric, of the rash action of a Christian soldier, who, by

throwing away his crown of laurel, had exposed himself and his

brethren to the most imminent danger. By the mention of the

emperors, (Severus and Caracalla,) it is evident, notwithstanding

the wishes of M. de Tillemont, that Tertullian composed his

treatise De Corona long before he was engaged in the errors of

the Montanists. See Memoires Ecclesiastiques, tom. iii. p. 384.

Note: The soldier did not tear off his crown to throw it down

with contempt; he did not even throw it away; he held it in his

hand, while others were it on their heads. Solus libero capite,

ornamento in manu otioso.—G Note: Tertullian does not expressly

name the two emperors, Severus and Caracalla: he speaks only of

two emperors, and of a long peace which the church had enjoyed.

It is generally agreed that Tertullian became a Montanist about

the year 200: his work, de Corona Militis, appears to have been

written, at the earliest about the year 202 before the

persecution of Severus: it may be maintained, then, that it is

subsequent to the Montanism of the author. See Mosheim, Diss. de

Apol. Tertull. p. 53. Biblioth. Amsterd. tom. x. part ii. p. 292.

Cave’s Hist. Lit. p. 92, 93.—G. ——The state of Tertullian’s

opinions at the particular period is almost an idle question.

“The fiery African” is not at any time to be considered a fair

representative of Christianity.—M.]

Such was the anxious diligence which was required to guard the

chastity of the gospel from the infectious breath of idolatry.

The superstitious observances of public or private rites were

carelessly practised, from education and habit, by the followers

of the established religion. But as often as they occurred, they

afforded the Christians an opportunity of declaring and

confirming their zealous opposition. By these frequent

protestations their attachment to the faith was continually

fortified; and in proportion to the increase of zeal, they

combated with the more ardor and success in the holy war, which

they had undertaken against the empire of the demons.

II. The writings of Cicero 51 represent in the most lively colors

the ignorance, the errors, and the uncertainty of the ancient

philosophers with regard to the immortality of the soul. When

they are desirous of arming their disciples against the fear of

death, they inculcate, as an obvious though melancholy position,

that the fatal stroke of our dissolution releases us from the

calamities of life; and that those can no longer suffer, who no

longer exist. Yet there were a few sages of Greece and Rome who

had conceived a more exalted, and, in some respects, a juster

idea of human nature, though it must be confessed, that in the

sublime inquiry, their reason had been often guided by their

imagination, and that their imagination had been prompted by

their vanity. When they viewed with complacency the extent of

their own mental powers, when they exercised the various

faculties of memory, of fancy, and of judgment, in the most

profound speculations, or the most important labors, and when

they reflected on the desire of fame, which transported them into

future ages, far beyond the bounds of death and of the grave,

they were unwilling to confound themselves with the beasts of the

field, or to suppose that a being, for whose dignity they

entertained the most sincere admiration, could be limited to a

spot of earth, and to a few years of duration. With this

favorable prepossession they summoned to their aid the science,

or rather the language, of Metaphysics. They soon discovered,

that as none of the properties of matter will apply to the

operations of the mind, the human soul must consequently be a

substance distinct from the body, pure, simple, and spiritual,

incapable of dissolution, and susceptible of a much higher degree

of virtue and happiness after the release from its corporeal

prison. From these specious and noble principles, the

philosophers who trod in the footsteps of Plato deduced a very

unjustifiable conclusion, since they asserted, not only the

future immortality, but the past eternity, of the human soul,

which they were too apt to consider as a portion of the infinite

and self-existing spirit, which pervades and sustains the

universe. 52 A doctrine thus removed beyond the senses and the

experience of mankind might serve to amuse the leisure of a

philosophic mind; or, in the silence of solitude, it might

sometimes impart a ray of comfort to desponding virtue; but the

faint impression which had been received in the schools was soon

obliterated by the commerce and business of active life. We are

sufficiently acquainted with the eminent persons who flourished

in the age of Cicero and of the first Cæsars, with their actions,

their characters, and their motives, to be assured that their

conduct in this life was never regulated by any serious

conviction of the rewards or punishments of a future state. At

the bar and in the senate of Rome the ablest orators were not

apprehensive of giving offence to their hearers by exposing that

doctrine as an idle and extravagant opinion, which was rejected

with contempt by every man of a liberal education and

understanding. 53

51 (return) [ In particular, the first book of the Tusculan

Questions, and the treatise De Senectute, and the Somnium

Scipionis, contain, in the most beautiful language, every thing

that Grecian philosophy, on Roman good sense, could possibly

suggest on this dark but important object.]

52 (return) [ The preexistence of human souls, so far at least as

that doctrine is compatible with religion, was adopted by many of

the Greek and Latin fathers. See Beausobre, Hist. du Manicheisme,

l. vi. c. 4.]

53 (return) [ See Cicero pro Cluent. c. 61. Cæsar ap. Sallust. de

Bell. Catilis n 50. Juvenal. Satir. ii. 149. ——Esse aliquid

manes, et subterranea regna, —————Nec pueri credunt, nisi qui

nondum æree lavantæ.]

Since therefore the most sublime efforts of philosophy can extend

no further than feebly to point out the desire, the hope, or, at

most, the probability, of a future state, there is nothing,

except a divine revelation, that can ascertain the existence and

describe the condition, of the invisible country which is

destined to receive the souls of men after their separation from

the body. But we may perceive several defects inherent to the

popular religions of Greece and Rome, which rendered them very

unequal to so arduous a task. 1. The general system of their

mythology was unsupported by any solid proofs; and the wisest

among the Pagans had already disclaimed its usurped authority. 2.

The description of the infernal regions had been abandoned to the

fancy of painters and of poets, who peopled them with so many

phantoms and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and

punishments with so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most

congenial to the human heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the

absurd mixture of the wildest fictions. 54 3. The doctrine of a

future state was scarcely considered among the devout polytheists

of Greece and Rome as a fundamental article of faith. The

providence of the gods, as it related to public communities

rather than to private individuals, was principally displayed on

the visible theatre of the present world. The petitions which

were offered on the altars of Jupiter or Apollo expressed the

anxiety of their worshippers for temporal happiness, and their

ignorance or indifference concerning a future life. 55 The

important truth of the immortality of the soul was inculcated

with more diligence, as well as success, in India, in Assyria, in

Egypt, and in Gaul; and since we cannot attribute such a

difference to the superior knowledge of the barbarians, we must

ascribe it to the influence of an established priesthood, which

employed the motives of virtue as the instrument of ambition. 56

54 (return) [ The xith book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary

and incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil

have embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more

correct than their great model, are guilty of very strange

inconsistencies. See Bayle, Responses aux Questions d’un

Provincial, part iii. c. 22.]

55 (return) [ See xvith epistle of the first book of Horace, the

xiiith Satire of Juvenal, and the iid Satire of Persius: these

popular discourses express the sentiment and language of the

multitude.]

56 (return) [ If we confine ourselves to the Gauls, we may

observe, that they intrusted, not only their lives, but even

their money, to the security of another world. Vetus ille mos

Gallorum occurrit (says Valerius Maximus, l. ii. c. 6, p. 10)

quos, memoria proditum est pecunias montuas, quæ his apud inferos

redderentur, dare solitos. The same custom is more darkly

insinuated by Mela, l. iii. c. 2. It is almost needless to add,

that the profits of trade hold a just proportion to the credit of

the merchant, and that the Druids derived from their holy

profession a character of responsibility, which could scarcely be

claimed by any other order of men.]

We might naturally expect that a principle so essential to

religion, would have been revealed in the clearest terms to the

chosen people of Palestine, and that it might safely have been

intrusted to the hereditary priesthood of Aaron. It is incumbent

on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, 57

when we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul

is omitted in the law of Moses; it is darkly insinuated by the

prophets; and during the long period which elapsed between the

Egyptian and the Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as

fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow

compass of the present life. 58 After Cyrus had permitted the

exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra

had restored the ancient records of their religion, two

celebrated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly

arose at Jerusalem. 59 The former, selected from the more opulent

and distinguished ranks of society, were strictly attached to the

literal sense of the Mosaic law, and they piously rejected the

immortality of the soul, as an opinion that received no

countenance from the divine book, which they revered as the only

rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture the Pharisees

added that of tradition, and they accepted, under the name of

traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or

religion of the eastern nations. The doctrines of fate or

predestination, of angels and spirits, and of a future state of

rewards and punishments, were in the number of these new articles

of belief; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their

manners, had drawn into their party the body of the Jewish

people, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing

sentiment of the synagogue, under the reign of the Asmonæan

princes and pontiffs. The temper of the Jews was incapable of

contenting itself with such a cold and languid assent as might

satisfy the mind of a Polytheist; and as soon as they admitted

the idea of a future state, they embraced it with the zeal which

has always formed the characteristic of the nation. Their zeal,

however, added nothing to its evidence, or even probability: and

it was still necessary that the doctrine of life and immortality,

which had been dictated by nature, approved by reason, and

received by superstition, should obtain the sanction of divine

truth from the authority and example of Christ.

57 (return) [ The right reverend author of the Divine Legation of

Moses as signs a very curious reason for the omission, and most

ingeniously retorts it on the unbelievers. * Note: The hypothesis

of Warburton concerning this remarkable fact, which, as far as

the Law of Moses, is unquestionable, made few disciples; and it

is difficult to suppose that it could be intended by the author

himself for more than a display of intellectual strength. Modern

writers have accounted in various ways for the silence of the

Hebrew legislator on the immortality of the soul. According to

Michaelis, “Moses wrote as an historian and as a lawgiver; he

regulated the ecclesiastical discipline, rather than the

religious belief of his people; and the sanctions of the law

being temporal, he had no occasion, and as a civil legislator

could not with propriety, threaten punishments in another world.”

See Michaelis, Laws of Moses, art. 272, vol. iv. p. 209, Eng.

Trans.; and Syntagma Commentationum, p. 80, quoted by Guizot. M.

Guizot adds, the “ingenious conjecture of a philosophic

theologian,” which approximates to an opinion long entertained by

the Editor. That writer believes, that in the state of

civilization at the time of the legislator, this doctrine, become

popular among the Jews, would necessarily have given birth to a

multitude of idolatrous superstitions which he wished to prevent.

His primary object was to establish a firm theocracy, to make his

people the conservators of the doctrine of the Divine Unity, the

basis upon which Christianity was hereafter to rest. He carefully

excluded everything which could obscure or weaken that doctrine.

Other nations had strangely abused their notions on the

immortality of the soul; Moses wished to prevent this abuse:

hence he forbade the Jews from consulting necromancers, (those

who evoke the spirits of the dead.) Deut. xviii. 11. Those who

reflect on the state of the Pagans and the Jews, and on the

facility with which idolatry crept in on every side, will not be

astonished that Moses has not developed a doctrine of which the

influence might be more pernicious than useful to his people.

Orat. Fest. de Vitæ Immort. Spe., &c., auct. Ph. Alb. Stapfer, p.

12 13, 20. Berne, 1787. ——Moses, as well from the intimations

scattered in his writings, the passage relating to the

translation of Enoch, (Gen. v. 24,) the prohibition of

necromancy, (Michaelis believes him to be the author of the Book

of Job though this opinion is in general rejected; other learned

writers consider this Book to be coeval with and known to Moses,)

as from his long residence in Egypt, and his acquaintance with

Egyptian wisdom, could not be ignorant of the doctrine of the

immortality of the soul. But this doctrine if popularly known

among the Jews, must have been purely Egyptian, and as so,

intimately connected with the whole religious system of that

country. It was no doubt moulded up with the tenet of the

transmigration of the soul, perhaps with notions analogous to the

emanation system of India in which the human soul was an efflux

from or indeed a part of, the Deity. The Mosaic religion drew a

wide and impassable interval between the Creator and created

human beings: in this it differed from the Egyptian and all the

Eastern religions. As then the immortality of the soul was thus

inseparably blended with those foreign religions which were

altogether to be effaced from the minds of the people, and by no

means necessary for the establishment of the theocracy, Moses

maintained silence on this point and a purer notion of it was

left to be developed at a more favorable period in the history of

man.—M.]

58 (return) [ See Le Clerc (Prolegomena ad Hist. Ecclesiast.

sect. 1, c. 8) His authority seems to carry the greater weight,

as he has written a learned and judicious commentary on the books

of the Old Testament.]

59 (return) [ Joseph. Antiquitat. l. xiii. c. 10. De Bell. Jud.

ii. 8. According to the most natural interpretation of his words,

the Sadducees admitted only the Pentateuch; but it has pleased

some modern critics to add the Prophets to their creed, and to

suppose that they contented themselves with rejecting the

traditions of the Pharisees. Dr. Jortin has argued that point in

his Remarks on Ecclesiastical History, vol. ii. p. 103.]

When the promise of eternal happiness was proposed to mankind on

condition of adopting the faith, and of observing the precepts,

of the gospel, it is no wonder that so advantageous an offer

should have been accepted by great numbers of every religion, of

every rank, and of every province in the Roman empire. The

ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present

existence, and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the

doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages cannot give us any

adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth

was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion, which, however it

may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not

been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed,

that the end of the world, and the kingdom of heaven, were at

hand. 591 The near approach of this wonderful event had been

predicted by the apostles; the tradition of it was preserved by

their earliest disciples, and those who understood in their

literal senses the discourse of Christ himself, were obliged to

expect the second and glorious coming of the Son of Man in the

clouds, before that generation was totally extinguished, which

had beheld his humble condition upon earth, and which might still

be witness of the calamities of the Jews under Vespasian or

Hadrian. The revolution of seventeen centuries has instructed us

not to press too closely the mysterious language of prophecy and

revelation; but as long as, for wise purposes, this error was

permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most

salutary effects on the faith and practice of Christians, who

lived in the awful expectation of that moment, when the globe

itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at

the appearance of their divine Judge. 60

591 (return) [ This was, in fact, an integral part of the Jewish

notion of the Messiah, from which the minds of the apostles

themselves were but gradually detached. See Bertholdt,

Christologia Judæorum, concluding chapters—M.]

60 (return) [ This expectation was countenanced by the

twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew, and by the first epistle of

St. Paul to the Thessalonians. Erasmus removes the difficulty by

the help of allegory and metaphor; and the learned Grotius

ventures to insinuate, that, for wise purposes, the pious

deception was permitted to take place. * Note: Some modern

theologians explain it without discovering either allegory or

deception. They say, that Jesus Christ, after having proclaimed

the ruin of Jerusalem and of the Temple, speaks of his second

coming and the sings which were to precede it; but those who

believed that the moment was near deceived themselves as to the

sense of two words, an error which still subsists in our versions

of the Gospel according to St. Matthew, xxiv. 29, 34. In verse

29, we read, “Immediately after the tribulation of those days

shall the sun be darkened,” &c. The Greek word signifies all at

once, suddenly, not immediately; so that it signifies only the

sudden appearance of the signs which Jesus Christ announces not

the shortness of the interval which was to separate them from the

“days of tribulation,” of which he was speaking. The verse 34 is

this “Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till

all these things shall be fulfilled.” Jesus, speaking to his

disciples, uses these words, which the translators have rendered

by this generation, but which means the race, the filiation of my

disciples; that is, he speaks of a class of men, not of a

generation. The true sense then, according to these learned men,

is, In truth I tell you that this race of men, of which you are

the commencement, shall not pass away till this shall take place;

that is to say, the succession of Christians shall not cease till

his coming. See Commentary of M. Paulus on the New Test., edit.

1802, tom. iii. p. 445,—446.—G. ——Others, as Rosenmuller and

Kuinoel, in loc., confine this passage to a highly figurative

description of the ruins of the Jewish city and polity.—M.]

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part IV.

The ancient and popular doctrine of the Millennium was intimately

connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the

creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their

present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to

the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. 61 By the

same analogy it was inferred, that this long period of labor and

contention, which was now almost elapsed, 62 would be succeeded

by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with

the triumphant band of the saints and the elect who had escaped

death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon

earth till the time appointed for the last and general

resurrection. So pleasing was this hope to the mind of believers,

that the _New Jerusalem_, the seat of this blissful kingdom, was

quickly adorned with all the gayest colors of the imagination. A

felicity consisting only of pure and spiritual pleasure would

have appeared too refined for its inhabitants, who were still

supposed to possess their human nature and senses. A garden of

Eden, with the amusements of the pastoral life, was no longer

suited to the advanced state of society which prevailed under the

Roman empire. A city was therefore erected of gold and precious

stones, and a supernatural plenty of corn and wine was bestowed

on the adjacent territory; in the free enjoyment of whose

spontaneous productions the happy and benevolent people was never

to be restrained by any jealous laws of exclusive property. 63

The assurance of such a Millennium was carefully inculcated by a

succession of fathers from Justin Martyr, 64 and Irenæus, who

conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to

Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. 65

Though it might not be universally received, it appears to have

been the reigning sentiment of the orthodox believers; and it

seems so well adapted to the desires and apprehensions of

mankind, that it must have contributed in a very considerable

degree to the progress of the Christian faith. But when the

edifice of the church was almost completed, the temporary support

was laid aside. The doctrine of Christ’s reign upon earth was at

first treated as a profound allegory, was considered by degrees

as a doubtful and useless opinion, and was at length rejected as

the absurd invention of heresy and fanaticism. 66 A mysterious

prophecy, which still forms a part of the sacred canon, but which

was thought to favor the exploded sentiment, has very narrowly

escaped the proscription of the church. 67

61 (return) [ See Burnet’s Sacred Theory, part iii. c. 5. This

tradition may be traced as high as the the author of Epistle of

Barnabas, who wrote in the first century, and who seems to have

been half a Jew. * Note: In fact it is purely Jewish. See

Mosheim, De Reb. Christ. ii. 8. Lightfoot’s Works, 8vo. edit.

vol. iii. p. 37. Bertholdt, Christologia Judæorum ch. 38.—M.]

62 (return) [ The primitive church of Antioch computed almost

6000 years from the creation of the world to the birth of Christ.

Africanus, Lactantius, and the Greek church, have reduced that

number to 5500, and Eusebius has contented himself with 5200

years. These calculations were formed on the Septuagint, which

was universally received during the six first centuries. The

authority of the vulgate and of the Hebrew text has determined

the moderns, Protestants as well as Catholics, to prefer a period

of about 4000 years; though, in the study of profane antiquity,

they often find themselves straitened by those narrow limits. *

Note: Most of the more learned modern English Protestants, Dr.

Hales, Mr. Faber, Dr. Russel, as well as the Continental writers,

adopt the larger chronology. There is little doubt that the

narrower system was framed by the Jews of Tiberias; it was

clearly neither that of St. Paul, nor of Josephus, nor of the

Samaritan Text. It is greatly to be regretted that the chronology

of the earlier Scriptures should ever have been made a religious

question—M.]

63 (return) [ Most of these pictures were borrowed from a

misrepresentation of Isaiah, Daniel, and the Apocalypse. One of

the grossest images may be found in Irenæus, (l. v. p. 455,) the

disciple of Papias, who had seen the apostle St. John.]

64 (return) [ See the second dialogue of Justin with Triphon, and

the seventh book of Lactantius. It is unnecessary to allege all

the intermediate fathers, as the fact is not disputed. Yet the

curious reader may consult Daille de Uus Patrum, l. ii. c. 4.]

65 (return) [ The testimony of Justin of his own faith and that

of his orthodox brethren, in the doctrine of a Millennium, is

delivered in the clearest and most solemn manner, (Dialog. cum

Tryphonte Jud. p. 177, 178, edit. Benedictin.) If in the

beginning of this important passage there is any thing like an

inconsistency, we may impute it, as we think proper, either to

the author or to his transcribers. * Note: The Millenium is

described in what once stood as the XLIst Article of the English

Church (see Collier, Eccles. Hist., for Articles of Edw. VI.) as

“a fable of Jewish dotage.” The whole of these gross and earthly

images may be traced in the works which treat on the Jewish

traditions, in Lightfoot, Schoetgen, and Eisenmenger; “Das

enthdeckte Judenthum” t. ii 809; and briefly in Bertholdt, i. c.

38, 39.—M.]

66 (return) [ Dupin, Bibliotheque Ecclesiastique, tom. i. p. 223,

tom. ii. p. 366, and Mosheim, p. 720; though the latter of these

learned divines is not altogether candid on this occasion.]

67 (return) [ In the council of Laodicea, (about the year 360,)

the Apocalypse was tacitly excluded from the sacred canon, by the

same churches of Asia to which it is addressed; and we may learn

from the complaint of Sulpicius Severus, that their sentence had

been ratified by the greater number of Christians of his time.

From what causes then is the Apocalypse at present so generally

received by the Greek, the Roman, and the Protestant churches?

The following ones may be assigned. 1. The Greeks were subdued by

the authority of an impostor, who, in the sixth century, assumed

the character of Dionysius the Areopagite. 2. A just apprehension

that the grammarians might become more important than the

theologians, engaged the council of Trent to fix the seal of

their infallibility on all the books of Scripture contained in

the Latin Vulgate, in the number of which the Apocalypse was

fortunately included. (Fr. Paolo, Istoria del Concilio

Tridentino, l. ii.) 3. The advantage of turning those mysterious

prophecies against the See of Rome, inspired the Protestants with

uncommon veneration for so useful an ally. See the ingenious and

elegant discourses of the present bishop of Litchfield on that

unpromising subject. * Note: The exclusion of the Apocalypse is

not improbably assigned to its obvious unfitness to be read in

churches. It is to be feared that a history of the interpretation

of the Apocalypse would not give a very favorable view either of

the wisdom or the charity of the successive ages of Christianity.

Wetstein’s interpretation, differently modified, is adopted by

most Continental scholars.—M.]

Whilst the happiness and glory of a temporal reign were promised

to the disciples of Christ, the most dreadful calamities were

denounced against an unbelieving world. The edification of a new

Jerusalem was to advance by equal steps with the destruction of

the mystic Babylon; and as long as the emperors who reigned

before Constantine persisted in the profession of idolatry, the

epithet of Babylon was applied to the city and to the empire of

Rome. A regular series was prepared of all the moral and physical

evils which can afflict a flourishing nation; intestine discord,

and the invasion of the fiercest barbarians from the unknown

regions of the North; pestilence and famine, comets and eclipses,

earthquakes and inundations. 68 All these were only so many

preparatory and alarming signs of the great catastrophe of Rome,

when the country of the Scipios and Cæsars should be consumed by

a flame from Heaven, and the city of the seven hills, with her

palaces, her temples, and her triumphal arches, should be buried

in a vast lake of fire and brimstone. It might, however, afford

some consolation to Roman vanity, that the period of their empire

would be that of the world itself; which, as it had once perished

by the element of water, was destined to experience a second and

a speedy destruction from the element of fire. In the opinion of

a general conflagration, the faith of the Christian very happily

coincided with the tradition of the East, the philosophy of the

Stoics, and the analogy of Nature; and even the country, which,

from religious motives, had been chosen for the origin and

principal scene of the conflagration, was the best adapted for

that purpose by natural and physical causes; by its deep caverns,

beds of sulphur, and numerous volcanoes, of which those of Ætna,

of Vesuvius, and of Lipari, exhibit a very imperfect

representation. The calmest and most intrepid sceptic could not

refuse to acknowledge that the destruction of the present system

of the world by fire was in itself extremely probable. The

Christian, who founded his belief much less on the fallacious

arguments of reason than on the authority of tradition and the

interpretation of Scripture, expected it with terror and

confidence as a certain and approaching event; and as his mind

was perpetually filled with the solemn idea, he considered every

disaster that happened to the empire as an infallible symptom of

an expiring world. 69

68 (return) [ Lactantius (Institut. Divin. vii. 15, &c.) relates

the dismal talk of futurity with great spirit and eloquence. *

Note: Lactantius had a notion of a great Asiatic empire, which

was previously to rise on the ruins of the Roman: quod Romanum

nomen animus dicere, sed dicam. quia futurum est tolletur de

terra, et impere. Asiam revertetur.—M.]

69 (return) [ On this subject every reader of taste will be

entertained with the third part of Burnet’s Sacred Theory. He

blends philosophy, Scripture, and tradition, into one magnificent

system; in the description of which he displays a strength of

fancy not inferior to that of Milton himself.]

The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans,

on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth,

seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age.

70 But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer

consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal

torture, the far greater part of the human species. A charitable

hope might perhaps be indulged in favor of Socrates, or some

other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason

before that of the gospel had arisen. 71 But it was unanimously

affirmed, that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ,

had obstinately persisted in the worship of the dæmons, neither

deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of

the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the

ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into

a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship

were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious

faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves

oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by

resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of

their future triumph. “You are fond of spectacles,” exclaims the

stern Tertullian; “expect the greatest of all spectacles, the

last and eternal judgment of the universe. 71b How shall I

admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many

proud monarchs, so many fancied gods, groaning in the lowest

abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name

of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled

against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in

red-hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated

poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ;

so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own

sufferings; so many dancers.”

711 But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil

over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous

African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling

witticisms. 72

70 (return) [ And yet whatever may be the language of

individuals, it is still the public doctrine of all the Christian

churches; nor can even our own refuse to admit the conclusions

which must be drawn from the viiith and the xviiith of her

Articles. The Jansenists, who have so diligently studied the

works of the fathers, maintain this sentiment with distinguished

zeal; and the learned M. de Tillemont never dismisses a virtuous

emperor without pronouncing his damnation. Zuinglius is perhaps

the only leader of a party who has ever adopted the milder

sentiment, and he gave no less offence to the Lutherans than to

the Catholics. See Bossuet, Histoire des Variations des Eglises

Protestantes, l. ii. c. 19—22.]

71 (return) [ Justin and Clemens of Alexandria allow that some of

the philosophers were instructed by the Logos; confounding its

double signification of the human reason, and of the Divine

Word.]

711 (return) [ This translation is not exact: the first sentence

is imperfect. Tertullian says, Ille dies nationibus insperatus,

ille derisus, cum tanta sacculi vetustas et tot ejus nativitates

uno igne haurientur. The text does not authorize the exaggerated

expressions, so many magistrates, so many sago philosophers, so

many poets, &c.; but simply magistrates, philosophers, poets.—G.

—It is not clear that Gibbon’s version or paraphrase is

incorrect: Tertullian writes, tot tantosque reges item præsides,

&c.—M.]

71b (return) [Tertullian, de Spectaculis, c. 30. In order to

ascertain the degree of authority which the zealous African had

acquired it may be sufficient to allege the testimony of Cyprian,

the doctor and guide of all the western churches. (See Prudent.

Hym. xiii. 100.) As often as he applied himself to his daily

study of the writings of Tertullian, he was accustomed to say,

“Da mihi magistrum, Give me my master.” (Hieronym. de Viris

Illustribus, tom. i. p. 284.)]

72 (return) [ The object of Tertullian’s vehemence in his

Treatise, was to keep the Christians away from the secular games

celebrated by the Emperor Severus: It has not prevented him from

showing himself in other places full of benevolence and charity

towards unbelievers: the spirit of the gospel has sometimes

prevailed over the violence of human passions: Qui ergo putaveris

nihil nos de salute Cæsaris curare (he says in his Apology)

inspice Dei voces, literas nostras. Scitote ex illis præceptum

esse nobis ad redudantionem, benignitates etiam pro inimicis Deum

orare, et pro persecutoribus cona precari. Sed etiam nominatim

atque manifeste orate inquit (Christus) pro regibus et pro

principibus et potestatibus ut omnia sint tranquilla vobis Tert.

Apol. c. 31.—G. ——It would be wiser for Christianity, retreating

upon its genuine records in the New Testament, to disclaim this

fierce African, than to identify itself with his furious

invectives by unsatisfactory apologies for their unchristian

fanaticism.—M.]

Doubtless there were many among the primitive Christians of a

temper more suitable to the meekness and charity of their

profession. There were many who felt a sincere compassion for the

danger of their friends and countrymen, and who exerted the most

benevolent zeal to save them from the impending destruction.

The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors,

against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could

afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified

and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might

assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could once

persuade himself to suspect that the Christian religion might

possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it

was the safest and most prudent party that he could possibly

embrace.

III. The supernatural gifts, which even in this life were

ascribed to the Christians above the rest of mankind, must have

conduced to their own comfort, and very frequently to the

conviction of infidels. Besides the occasional prodigies, which

might sometimes be effected by the immediate interposition of the

Deity when he suspended the laws of Nature for the service of

religion, the Christian church, from the time of the apostles and

their first disciples, 73 has claimed an uninterrupted succession

of miraculous powers, the gift of tongues, of vision, and of

prophecy, the power of expelling dæmons, of healing the sick, and

of raising the dead. The knowledge of foreign languages was

frequently communicated to the contemporaries of Irenæus, though

Irenæus himself was left to struggle with the difficulties of a

barbarous dialect, whilst he preached the gospel to the natives

of Gaul. 74 The divine inspiration, whether it was conveyed in

the form of a waking or of a sleeping vision, is described as a

favor very liberally bestowed on all ranks of the faithful, on

women as on elders, on boys as well as upon bishops. When their

devout minds were sufficiently prepared by a course of prayer, of

fasting, and of vigils, to receive the extraordinary impulse,

they were transported out of their senses, and delivered in

ecstasy what was inspired, being mere organs of the Holy Spirit,

just as a pipe or flute is of him who blows into it. 75 We may

add, that the design of these visions was, for the most part,

either to disclose the future history, or to guide the present

administration, of the church. The expulsion of the dæmons from

the bodies of those unhappy persons whom they had been permitted

to torment, was considered as a signal though ordinary triumph of

religion, and is repeatedly alleged by the ancient apoligists, as

the most convincing evidence of the truth of Christianity. The

awful ceremony was usually performed in a public manner, and in

the presence of a great number of spectators; the patient was

relieved by the power or skill of the exorcist, and the

vanquished dæmon was heard to confess that he was one of the

fabled gods of antiquity, who had impiously usurped the adoration

of mankind. 76 But the miraculous cure of diseases of the most

inveterate or even preternatural kind can no longer occasion any

surprise, when we recollect, that in the days of Irenæus, about

the end of the second century, the resurrection of the dead was

very far from being esteemed an uncommon event; that the miracle

was frequently performed on necessary occasions, by great fasting

and the joint supplication of the church of the place, and that

the persons thus restored to their prayers had lived afterwards

among them many years. 77 At such a period, when faith could

boast of so many wonderful victories over death, it seems

difficult to account for the scepticism of those philosophers,

who still rejected and derided the doctrine of the resurrection.

A noble Grecian had rested on this important ground the whole

controversy, and promised Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, that if

he could be gratified with the sight of a single person who had

been actually raised from the dead, he would immediately embrace

the Christian religion. It is somewhat remarkable, that the

prelate of the first eastern church, however anxious for the

conversion of his friend, thought proper to decline this fair and

reasonable challenge. 78

73 (return) [ Notwithstanding the evasions of Dr. Middleton, it

is impossible to overlook the clear traces of visions and

inspiration, which may be found in the apostolic fathers. * Note:

Gibbon should have noticed the distinct and remarkable passage

from Chrysostom, quoted by Middleton, (Works, vol. i. p. 105,) in

which he affirms the long discontinuance of miracles as a

notorious fact.—M.]

74 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæres. Proem. p.3 Dr. Middleton (Free

Inquiry, p. 96, &c.) observes, that as this pretension of all

others was the most difficult to support by art, it was the

soonest given up. The observation suits his hypothesis. * Note:

This passage of Irenæus contains no allusion to the gift of

tongues; it is merely an apology for a rude and unpolished Greek

style, which could not be expected from one who passed his life

in a remote and barbarous province, and was continually obliged

to speak the Celtic language.—M. Note: Except in the life of

Pachomius, an Egyptian monk of the fourth century. (see Jortin,

Ecc. Hist. i. p. 368, edit. 1805,) and the latter (not earlier)

lives of Xavier, there is no claim laid to the gift of tongues

since the time of Irenæus; and of this claim, Xavier’s own

letters are profoundly silent. See Douglas’s Criterion, p. 76

edit. 1807.—M.]

75 (return) [ Athenagoras in Legatione. Justin Martyr, Cohort. ad

Gentes Tertullian advers. Marcionit. l. iv. These descriptions

are not very unlike the prophetic fury, for which Cicero (de

Divinat.ii. 54) expresses so little reverence.]

76 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 23) throws out a bold

defiance to the Pagan magistrates. Of the primitive miracles, the

power of exorcising is the only one which has been assumed by

Protestants. * Note: But by Protestants neither of the most

enlightened ages nor most reasoning minds.—M.]

77 (return) [ Irenæus adv. Hæreses, l. ii. 56, 57, l. v. c. 6.

Mr. Dodwell (Dissertat. ad Irenæum, ii. 42) concludes, that the

second century was still more fertile in miracles than the first.

* Note: It is difficult to answer Middleton’s objection to this

statement of Irenæus: “It is very strange, that from the time of

the apostles there is not a single instance of this miracle to be

found in the three first centuries; except a single case,

slightly intimated in Eusebius, from the Works of Papias; which

he seems to rank among the other fabulous stories delivered by

that weak man.” Middleton, Works, vol. i. p. 59. Bp. Douglas

(Criterion, p 389) would consider Irenæus to speak of what had

“been performed formerly.” not in his own time.—M.]

78 (return) [ Theophilus ad Autolycum, l. i. p. 345. Edit.

Benedictin. Paris, 1742. * Note: A candid sceptic might discern

some impropriety in the Bishop being called upon to perform a

miracle on demand.—M.]

The miracles of the primitive church, after obtaining the

sanction of ages, have been lately attacked in a very free and

ingenious inquiry, 79 which, though it has met with the most

favorable reception from the public, appears to have excited a

general scandal among the divines of our own as well as of the

other Protestant churches of Europe. 80 Our different sentiments

on this subject will be much less influenced by any particular

arguments, than by our habits of study and reflection; and, above

all, by the degree of evidence which we have accustomed ourselves

to require for the proof of a miraculous event. The duty of an

historian does not call upon him to interpose his private

judgment in this nice and important controversy; but he ought not

to dissemble the difficulty of adopting such a theory as may

reconcile the interest of religion with that of reason, of making

a proper application of that theory, and of defining with

precision the limits of that happy period, exempt from error and

from deceit, to which we might be disposed to extend the gift of

supernatural powers. From the first of the fathers to the last of

the popes, a succession of bishops, of saints, of martyrs, and of

miracles, is continued without interruption; and the progress of

superstition was so gradual, and almost imperceptible, that we

know not in what particular link we should break the chain of

tradition. Every age bears testimony to the wonderful events by

which it was distinguished, and its testimony appears no less

weighty and respectable than that of the preceding generation,

till we are insensibly led on to accuse our own inconsistency, if

in the eighth or in the twelfth century we deny to the venerable

Bede, or to the holy Bernard, the same degree of confidence

which, in the second century, we had so liberally granted to

Justin or to Irenæus. 81 If the truth of any of those miracles is

appreciated by their apparent use and propriety, every age had

unbelievers to convince, heretics to confute, and idolatrous

nations to convert; and sufficient motives might always be

produced to justify the interposition of Heaven. And yet, since

every friend to revelation is persuaded of the reality, and every

reasonable man is convinced of the cessation, of miraculous

powers, it is evident that there must have been _some period_ in

which they were either suddenly or gradually withdrawn from the

Christian church. Whatever æra is chosen for that purpose, the

death of the apostles, the conversion of the Roman empire, or the

extinction of the Arian heresy, 82 the insensibility of the

Christians who lived at that time will equally afford a just

matter of surprise. They still supported their pretensions after

they had lost their power. Credulity performed the office of

faith; fanaticism was permitted to assume the language of

inspiration, and the effects of accident or contrivance were

ascribed to supernatural causes. The recent experience of genuine

miracles should have instructed the Christian world in the ways

of Providence, and habituated their eye (if we may use a very

inadequate expression) to the style of the divine artist. Should

the most skilful painter of modern Italy presume to decorate his

feeble imitations with the name of Raphæl or of Correggio, the

insolent fraud would be soon discovered, and indignantly

rejected.

79 (return) [ Dr. Middleton sent out his Introduction in the year

1747, published his Free Inquiry in 1749, and before his death,

which happened in 1750, he had prepared a vindication of it

against his numerous adversaries.]

80 (return) [ The university of Oxford conferred degrees on his

opponents. From the indignation of Mosheim, (p. 221,) we may

discover the sentiments of the Lutheran divines. * Note: Yet many

Protestant divines will now without reluctance confine miracles

to the time of the apostles, or at least to the first century.—M]

81 (return) [It may seem somewhat remarkable, that Bernard of

Clairvaux, who records so many miracles of his friend St.

Malachi, never takes any notice of his own, which, in their turn,

however, are carefully related by his companions and disciples.

In the long series of ecclesiastical history, does there exist a

single instance of a saint asserting that he himself possessed

the gift of miracles?]

82 (return) [ The conversion of Constantine is the æra which is

most usually fixed by Protestants. The more rational divines are

unwilling to admit the miracles of the ivth, whilst the more

credulous are unwilling to reject those of the vth century. *

Note: All this appears to proceed on the principle that any

distinct line can be drawn in an unphilosophic age between

wonders and miracles, or between what piety, from their

unexpected and extraordinary nature, the marvellous concurrence

of secondary causes to some remarkable end, may consider

providential interpositions, and miracles strictly so called, in

which the laws of nature are suspended or violated. It is

impossible to assign, on one side, limits to human credulity, on

the other, to the influence of the imagination on the bodily

frame; but some of the miracles recorded in the Gospels are such

palpable impossibilities, according to the known laws and

operations of nature, that if recorded on sufficient evidence,

and the evidence we believe to be that of eye-witnesses, we

cannot reject them, without either asserting, with Hume, that no

evidence can prove a miracle, or that the Author of Nature has no

power of suspending its ordinary laws. But which of the

post-apostolic miracles will bear this test?—M.]

Whatever opinion may be entertained of the miracles of the

primitive church since the time of the apostles, this unresisting

softness of temper, so conspicuous among the believers of the

second and third centuries, proved of some accidental benefit to

the cause of truth and religion. In modern times, a latent and

even involuntary scepticism adheres to the most pious

dispositions. Their admission of supernatural truths is much less

an active consent than a cold and passive acquiescence.

Accustomed long since to observe and to respect the invariable

order of Nature, our reason, or at least our imagination, is not

sufficiently prepared to sustain the visible action of the Deity.

But, in the first ages of Christianity, the situation of mankind

was extremely different. The most curious, or the most credulous,

among the Pagans, were often persuaded to enter into a society

which asserted an actual claim of miraculous powers. The

primitive Christians perpetually trod on mystic ground, and their

minds were exercised by the habits of believing the most

extraordinary events. They felt, or they fancied, that on every

side they were incessantly assaulted by dæmons, comforted by

visions, instructed by prophecy, and surprisingly delivered from

danger, sickness, and from death itself, by the supplications of

the church. The real or imaginary prodigies, of which they so

frequently conceived themselves to be the objects, the

instruments, or the spectators, very happily disposed them to

adopt with the same ease, but with far greater justice, the

authentic wonders of the evangelic history; and thus miracles

that exceeded not the measure of their own experience, inspired

them with the most lively assurance of mysteries which were

acknowledged to surpass the limits of their understanding. It is

this deep impression of supernatural truths which has been so

much celebrated under the name of faith; a state of mind

described as the surest pledge of the divine favor and of future

felicity, and recommended as the first, or perhaps the only merit

of a Christian. According to the more rigid doctors, the moral

virtues, which may be equally practised by infidels, are

destitute of any value or efficacy in the work of our

justification.

Chapter XV: Progress Of The Christian Religion.—Part V.

IV. But the primitive Christian demonstrated his faith by his

virtues; and it was very justly supposed that the divine

persuasion, which enlightened or subdued the understanding, must,

at the same time, purify the heart, and direct the actions, of

the believer. The first apologists of Christianity who justify

the innocence of their brethren, and the writers of a later

period who celebrate the sanctity of their ancestors, display, in

the most lively colors, the reformation of manners which was

introduced into the world by the preaching of the gospel. As it

is my intention to remark only such human causes as were

permitted to second the influence of revelation, I shall slightly

mention two motives which might naturally render the lives of the

primitive Christians much purer and more austere than those of

their Pagan contemporaries, or their degenerate successors;

repentance for their past sins, and the laudable desire of

supporting the reputation of the society in which they were

engaged. 83

83 (return) [ These, in the opinion of the editor, are the most

uncandid paragraphs in Gibbon’s History. He ought either, with

manly courage, to have denied the moral reformation introduced by

Christianity, or fairly to have investigated all its motives; not

to have confined himself to an insidious and sarcastic

description of the less pure and generous elements of the

Christian character as it appeared even at that early time.—M.]

It is a very ancient reproach, suggested by the ignorance or the

malice of infidelity, that the Christians allured into their

party the most atrocious criminals, who, as soon as they were

touched by a sense of remorse, were easily persuaded to wash

away, in the water of baptism, the guilt of their past conduct,

for which the temples of the gods refused to grant them any

expiation. But this reproach, when it is cleared from

misrepresentation, contributes as much to the honor as it did to

the increase of the church. The friends of Christianity may

acknowledge without a blush that many of the most eminent saints

had been before their baptism the most abandoned sinners. Those

persons, who in the world had followed, though in an imperfect

manner, the dictates of benevolence and propriety, derived such a

calm satisfaction from the opinion of their own rectitude, as

rendered them much less susceptible of the sudden emotions of

shame, of grief, and of terror, which have given birth to so many

wonderful conversions. After the example of their divine Master,

the missionaries of the gospel disdained not the society of men,

and especially of women, oppressed by the consciousness, and very

often by the effects, of their vices. As they emerged from sin

and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, they

resolved to devote themselves to a life, not only of virtue, but

of penitence. The desire of perfection became the ruling passion

of their soul; and it is well known that, while reason embraces a

cold mediocrity, our passions hurry us, with rapid violence, over

the space which lies between the most opposite extremes. 83b

83b (return) [The imputations of Celsus and Julian, with the

defence of the fathers, are very fairly stated by Spanheim,

Commentaire sur les Cesars de Julian, p. 468.]

When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the

faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they

found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past

disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual, but of a

very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that

has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion

to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal

as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness

of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by

the virtues and vices of the persons who compose it; and every

member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over

his own behavior, and over that of his brethren, since, as he

must expect to incur a part of the common disgrace, he may hope

to enjoy a share of the common reputation. When the Christians of

Bithynia were brought before the tribunal of the younger Pliny,

they assured the proconsul, that, far from being engaged in any

unlawful conspiracy, they were bound by a solemn obligation to

abstain from the commission of those crimes which disturb the

private or public peace of society, from theft, robbery,

adultery, perjury, and fraud. 84 841 Near a century afterwards,

Tertullian, with an honest pride, could boast, that very few

Christians had suffered by the hand of the executioner, except on

account of their religion. 85 Their serious and sequestered life,

averse to the gay luxury of the age, inured them to chastity,

temperance, economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. As

the greater number were of some trade or profession, it was

incumbent on them, by the strictest integrity and the fairest

dealing, to remove the suspicions which the profane are too apt

to conceive against the appearances of sanctity. The contempt of

the world exercised them in the habits of humility, meekness, and

patience. The more they were persecuted, the more closely they

adhered to each other. Their mutual charity and unsuspecting

confidence has been remarked by infidels, and was too often

abused by perfidious friends. 86

84 (return) [ Plin. Epist. x. 97. * Note: Is not the sense of

Tertullian rather, if guilty of any other offence, he had thereby

ceased to be a Christian?—M.]

841 (return) [ And this blamelessness was fully admitted by the

candid and enlightened Roman.—M.]

85 (return) [ Tertullian, Apolog. c. 44. He adds, however, with

some degree of hesitation, “Aut si aliud, jam non Christianus.” *

Note: Tertullian says positively no Christian, nemo illic

Christianus; for the rest, the limitation which he himself

subjoins, and which Gibbon quotes in the foregoing note,

diminishes the force of this assertion, and appears to prove that

at least he knew none such.—G.]

86 (return) [ The philosopher Peregrinus (of whose life and death

Lucian has left us so entertaining an account) imposed, for a

long time, on the credulous simplicity of the Christians of

Asia.]