Constantine.—Part I.
The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians, From
The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. 1111
1111 (return) [ The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering
as a very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful
extenuation of the cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates
against the Christians. It is written in the most contemptibly
factious spirit of prejudice against the sufferers; it is
unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity. Let the narrative of
Cyprian’s death be examined. He had to relate the murder of an
innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed venerable
by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to death
because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of
tyranny, he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances
of decorum and politeness which attended this murder, and which
he relates with as much parade as if they were the most important
particulars of the event. Dr. Robertson has been the subject of
much blame for his real or supposed lenity towards the Spanish
murderers and tyrants in America. That the sixteenth chapter of
Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater disapprobation, is a
proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical animosity
against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
part of the eighteenth century.—_Mackintosh:_ see Life, i. p.
244, 245.]
If we seriously consider the purity of the Christian religion,
the sanctity of its moral precepts, and the innocent as well as
austere lives of the greater number of those who during the first
ages embraced the faith of the gospel, we should naturally
suppose, that so benevolent a doctrine would have been received
with due reverence, even by the unbelieving world; that the
learned and the polite, however they may deride the miracles,
would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect; and that the
magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected an
order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If,
on the other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of
Polytheism, as it was invariably maintained by the faith of the
people, the incredulity of philosophers, and the policy of the
Roman senate and emperors, we are at a loss to discover what new
offence the Christians had committed, what new provocation could
exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity, and what new
motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without concern
a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an
inoffensive mode of faith and worship.
The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a
more stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of
Christianity. About fourscore years after the death of Christ,
his innocent disciples were punished with death by the sentence
of a proconsul of the most amiable and philosophic character, and
according to the laws of an emperor distinguished by the wisdom
and justice of his general administration. The apologies which
were repeatedly addressed to the successors of Trajan are filled
with the most pathetic complaints, that the Christians, who
obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty, of conscience,
were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire, excluded
from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and
from the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme
power, the governors of the church have been no less diligently
employed in displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the
conduct, of their Pagan adversaries. To separate (if it be
possible) a few authentic as well as interesting facts from an
undigested mass of fiction and error, and to relate, in a clear
and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the duration, and
the most important circumstances of the persecutions to which the
first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
chapter. 1222
1222 (return) [ The history of the first age of Christianity is
only found in the Acts of the Apostles, and in order to speak of
the first persecutions experienced by the Christians, that book
should naturally have been consulted; those persecutions, then
limited to individuals and to a narrow sphere, interested only
the persecuted, and have been related by them alone. Gibbon
making the persecutions ascend no higher than Nero, has entirely
omitted those which preceded this epoch, and of which St. Luke
has preserved the memory. The only way to justify this omission
was, to attack the authenticity of the Acts of the Apostles; for,
if authentic, they must necessarily be consulted and quoted. Now,
antiquity has left very few works of which the authenticity is so
well established as that of the Acts of the Apostles. (See
Lardner’s Cred. of Gospel Hist. part iii.) It is therefore,
without sufficient reason, that Gibbon has maintained silence
concerning the narrative of St. Luke, and this omission is not
without importance.—G.]
The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear
animated with resentment, and perhaps heated by enthusiasm, are
seldom in a proper temper of mind calmly to investigate, or
candidly to appreciate, the motives of their enemies, which often
escape the impartial and discerning view even of those who are
placed at a secure distance from the flames of persecution. A
reason has been assigned for the conduct of the emperors towards
the primitive Christians, which may appear the more specious and
probable as it is drawn from the acknowledged genius of
Polytheism. It has already been observed, that the religious
concord of the world was principally supported by the implicit
assent and reverence which the nations of antiquity expressed for
their respective traditions and ceremonies. It might therefore be
expected, that they would unite with indignation against any sect
or people which should separate itself from the communion of
mankind, and claiming the exclusive possession of divine
knowledge, should disdain every form of worship, except its own,
as impious and idolatrous. The rights of toleration were held by
mutual indulgence: they were justly forfeited by a refusal of the
accustomed tribute. As the payment of this tribute was inflexibly
refused by the Jews, and by them alone, the consideration of the
treatment which they experienced from the Roman magistrates, will
serve to explain how far these speculations are justified by
facts, and will lead us to discover the true causes of the
persecution of Christianity.
Without repeating what has already been mentioned of the
reverence of the Roman princes and governors for the temple of
Jerusalem, we shall only observe, that the destruction of the
temple and city was accompanied and followed by every
circumstance that could exasperate the minds of the conquerors,
and authorize religious persecution by the most specious
arguments of political justice and the public safety. From the
reign of Nero to that of Antoninus Pius, the Jews discovered a
fierce impatience of the dominion of Rome, which repeatedly broke
out in the most furious massacres and insurrections. Humanity is
shocked at the recital of the horrid cruelties which they
committed in the cities of Egypt, of Cyprus, and of Cyrene, where
they dwelt in treacherous friendship with the unsuspecting
natives; 1 and we are tempted to applaud the severe retaliation
which was exercised by the arms of the legions against a race of
fanatics, whose dire and credulous superstition seemed to render
them the implacable enemies not only of the Roman government, but
of human kind. 2 The enthusiasm of the Jews was supported by the
opinion, that it was unlawful for them to pay taxes to an
idolatrous master; and by the flattering promise which they
derived from their ancient oracles, that a conquering Messiah
would soon arise, destined to break their fetters, and to invest
the favorites of heaven with the empire of the earth. It was by
announcing himself as their long-expected deliverer, and by
calling on all the descendants of Abraham to assert the hope of
Israel, that the famous Barchochebas collected a formidable army,
with which he resisted during two years the power of the emperor
Hadrian. 3
1 (return) [ In Cyrene, they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus,
240,000; in Egypt, a very great multitude. Many of these unhappy
victims were sawn asunder, according to a precedent to which
David had given the sanction of his example. The victorious Jews
devoured the flesh, licked up the blood, and twisted the entrails
like a girdle round their bodies. See Dion Cassius, l. lxviii. p.
1145. * Note: Some commentators, among them Reimar, in his notes
on Dion Cassius think that the hatred of the Romans against the
Jews has led the historian to exaggerate the cruelties committed
by the latter. Don. Cass. lxviii. p. 1146.—G.]
2 (return) [ Without repeating the well-known narratives of
Josephus, we may learn from Dion, (l. lxix. p. 1162,) that in
Hadrian’s war 580,000 Jews were cut off by the sword, besides an
infinite number which perished by famine, by disease, and by
fire.]
3 (return) [ For the sect of the Zealots, see Basnage, Histoire
des Juifs, l. i. c. 17; for the characters of the Messiah,
according to the Rabbis, l. v. c. 11, 12, 13; for the actions of
Barchochebas, l. vii. c. 12. (Hist. of Jews iii. 115, &c.)—M.]
Notwithstanding these repeated provocations, the resentment of
the Roman princes expired after the victory; nor were their
apprehensions continued beyond the period of war and danger. By
the general indulgence of polytheism, and by the mild temper of
Antoninus Pius, the Jews were restored to their ancient
privileges, and once more obtained the permission of circumcising
their children, with the easy restraint, that they should never
confer on any foreign proselyte that distinguishing mark of the
Hebrew race. 4 The numerous remains of that people, though they
were still excluded from the precincts of Jerusalem, were
permitted to form and to maintain considerable establishments
both in Italy and in the provinces, to acquire the freedom of
Rome, to enjoy municipal honors, and to obtain at the same time
an exemption from the burdensome and expensive offices of
society. The moderation or the contempt of the Romans gave a
legal sanction to the form of ecclesiastical police which was
instituted by the vanquished sect. The patriarch, who had fixed
his residence at Tiberias, was empowered to appoint his
subordinate ministers and apostles, to exercise a domestic
jurisdiction, and to receive from his dispersed brethren an
annual contribution. 5 New synagogues were frequently erected in
the principal cities of the empire; and the sabbaths, the fasts,
and the festivals, which were either commanded by the Mosaic law,
or enjoined by the traditions of the Rabbis, were celebrated in
the most solemn and public manner. 6 Such gentle treatment
insensibly assuaged the stern temper of the Jews. Awakened from
their dream of prophecy and conquest, they assumed the behavior
of peaceable and industrious subjects. Their irreconcilable
hatred of mankind, instead of flaming out in acts of blood and
violence, evaporated in less dangerous gratifications. They
embraced every opportunity of overreaching the idolaters in
trade; and they pronounced secret and ambiguous imprecations
against the haughty kingdom of Edom. 7
4 (return) [ It is to Modestinus, a Roman lawyer (l. vi.
regular.) that we are indebted for a distinct knowledge of the
Edict of Antoninus. See Casaubon ad Hist. August. p. 27.]
5 (return) [ See Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, l. iii. c. 2, 3.
The office of Patriarch was suppressed by Theodosius the
younger.]
6 (return) [ We need only mention the Purim, or deliverance of
the Jews from he rage of Haman, which, till the reign of
Theodosius, was celebrated with insolent triumph and riotous
intemperance. Basnage, Hist. des Juifs, l. vi. c. 17, l. viii. c.
6.]
7 (return) [ According to the false Josephus, Tsepho, the
grandson of Esau, conducted into Italy the army of Eneas, king of
Carthage. Another colony of Idumæans, flying from the sword of
David, took refuge in the dominions of Romulus. For these, or for
other reasons of equal weight, the name of Edom was applied by
the Jews to the Roman empire. * Note: The false Josephus is a
romancer of very modern date, though some of these legends are
probably more ancient. It may be worth considering whether many
of the stories in the Talmud are not history in a figurative
disguise, adopted from prudence. The Jews might dare to say many
things of Rome, under the significant appellation of Edom, which
they feared to utter publicly. Later and more ignorant ages took
literally, and perhaps embellished, what was intelligible among
the generation to which it was addressed. Hist. of Jews, iii.
131. ——The false Josephus has the inauguration of the emperor,
with the seven electors and apparently the pope assisting at the
coronation! Pref. page xxvi.—M.]
Since the Jews, who rejected with abhorrence the deities adored
by their sovereign and by their fellow-subjects, enjoyed,
however, the free exercise of their unsocial religion, there must
have existed some other cause, which exposed the disciples of
Christ to those severities from which the posterity of Abraham
was exempt. The difference between them is simple and obvious;
but, according to the sentiments of antiquity, it was of the
highest importance. The Jews were a _nation;_ the Christians were
a _sect:_ and if it was natural for every community to respect
the sacred institutions of their neighbors, it was incumbent on
them to persevere in those of their ancestors. The voice of
oracles, the precepts of philosophers, and the authority of the
laws, unanimously enforced this national obligation. By their
lofty claim of superior sanctity the Jews might provoke the
Polytheists to consider them as an odious and impure race. By
disdaining the intercourse of other nations, they might deserve
their contempt. The laws of Moses might be for the most part
frivolous or absurd; yet, since they had been received during
many ages by a large society, his followers were justified by the
example of mankind; and it was universally acknowledged, that
they had a right to practise what it would have been criminal in
them to neglect. But this principle, which protected the Jewish
synagogue, afforded not any favor or security to the primitive
church. By embracing the faith of the gospel, the Christians
incurred the supposed guilt of an unnatural and unpardonable
offence. They dissolved the sacred ties of custom and education,
violated the religious institutions of their country, and
presumptuously despised whatever their fathers had believed as
true, or had reverenced as sacred. Nor was this apostasy (if we
may use the expression) merely of a partial or local kind; since
the pious deserter who withdrew himself from the temples of Egypt
or Syria, would equally disdain to seek an asylum in those of
Athens or Carthage. Every Christian rejected with contempt the
superstitions of his family, his city, and his province. The
whole body of Christians unanimously refused to hold any
communion with the gods of Rome, of the empire, and of mankind.
It was in vain that the oppressed believer asserted the
inalienable rights of conscience and private judgment. Though his
situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach
the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the believing
part of the Pagan world. To their apprehensions, it was no less a
matter of surprise, that any individuals should entertain
scruples against complying with the established mode of worship,
than if they had conceived a sudden abhorrence to the manners,
the dress, 8111 or the language of their native country. 8
8 (return) [ From the arguments of Celsus, as they are
represented and refuted by Origen, (l. v. p. 247—259,) we may
clearly discover the distinction that was made between the Jewish
_people_ and the Christian _sect_. See, in the Dialogue of
Minucius Felix, (c. 5, 6,) a fair and not inelegant description
of the popular sentiments, with regard to the desertion of the
established worship.]
8111 (return) [ In all this there is doubtless much truth; yet
does not the more important difference lie on the surface? The
Christians made many converts the Jews but few. Had the Jewish
been equally a proselyting religion would it not have encountered
as violent persecution?—M.]
The surprise of the Pagans was soon succeeded by resentment; and
the most pious of men were exposed to the unjust but dangerous
imputation of impiety. Malice and prejudice concurred in
representing the Christians as a society of atheists, who, by the
most daring attack on the religious constitution of the empire,
had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate.
They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession)
from every mode of superstition which was received in any part of
the globe by the various temper of polytheism: but it was not
altogether so evident what deity, or what form of worship, they
had substituted to the gods and temples of antiquity. The pure
and sublime idea which they entertained of the Supreme Being
escaped the gross conception of the Pagan multitude, who were at
a loss to discover a spiritual and solitary God, that was neither
represented under any corporeal figure or visible symbol, nor was
adored with the accustomed pomp of libations and festivals, of
altars and sacrifices. 9 The sages of Greece and Rome, who had
elevated their minds to the contemplation of the existence and
attributes of the First Cause, were induced by reason or by
vanity to reserve for themselves and their chosen disciples the
privilege of this philosophical devotion. 10 They were far from
admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but
they considered them as flowing from the original disposition of
human nature; and they supposed that any popular mode of faith
and worship which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the
senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition,
find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings of the fancy,
and the visions of fanaticism. The careless glance which men of
wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian
revelation, served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to
persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered,
of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and
annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The
author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to
Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the
Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own
ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable
nature of the divine perfections. 11
9 (return) [ Cur nullas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota
simulacra!—Unde autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus,
solitarius, desti tutus? Minucius Felix, c. 10. The Pagan
interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favor of the Jews,
who had once a temple, altars, victims, &c.]
10 (return) [ It is difficult (says Plato) to attain, and
dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the
Theologie des Philosophes, in the Abbé d’Olivet’s French
translation of Tully de Naturâ Deorum, tom. i. p. 275.]
11 (return) [ The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats
the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, &c.; and in
one place he manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul
was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon,
who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism,
proposes a mysterious oath.]
It might appear less surprising, that the founder of Christianity
should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a
prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists
were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to
offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the
popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and
of Æsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination
for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. 12 But
they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the
temples of those ancient heroes, who, in the infancy of the
world, had invented arts, instituted laws, and vanquished the
tyrants or monsters who infested the earth, in order to choose
for the exclusive object of their religious worship an obscure
teacher, who, in a recent age, and among a barbarous people, had
fallen a sacrifice either to the malice of his own countrymen, or
to the jealousy of the Roman government. The Pagan multitude,
reserving their gratitude for temporal benefits alone, rejected
the inestimable present of life and immortality, which was
offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth. His mild constancy in
the midst of cruel and voluntary sufferings, his universal
benevolence, and the sublime simplicity of his actions and
character, were insufficient, in the opinion of those carnal men,
to compensate for the want of fame, of empire, and of success;
and whilst they refused to acknowledge his stupendous triumph
over the powers of darkness and of the grave, they
misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal birth, wandering
life, and ignominious death, of the divine Author of
Christianity. 13
12 (return) [ According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
70-85,) the dæmon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
deter, though by different means, both the people and the
philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]
13 (return) [ In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and Julian
for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead man of
Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast.
iii. 23.]
The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus
preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was
aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of the
criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed, that
Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust any
association among its subjects; and that the privileges of
private corporations, though formed for the most harmless or
beneficial purposes, were bestowed with a very sparing hand. 14
The religious assemblies of the Christians who had separated
themselves from the public worship, appeared of a much less
innocent nature; they were illegal in their principle, and in
their consequences might become dangerous; nor were the emperors
conscious that they violated the laws of justice, when, for the
peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes
nocturnal meetings. 15 The pious disobedience of the Christians
made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much
more serious and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might
perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready
submission, deeming their honor concerned in the execution of
their commands, sometimes attempted, by rigorous punishments, to
subdue this independent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an
authority superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and
duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it
everyday more deserving of his animadversion. We have already
seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had
insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every
city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their
family and country, that they might connect themselves in an
indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every
where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.
Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common
business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of
impending calamities, 16 inspired the Pagans with the
apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect,
the more alarming as it was the more obscure. “Whatever,” says
Pliny, “may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible
obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment.” 17
14 (return) [ The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company
of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked
all associations. See Plin. Epist. x. 42, 43.]
15 (return) [ The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict
against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the Christians
suspended their Agapæ; but it was impossible for them to omit the
exercise of public worship.]
16 (return) [ As the prophecies of the Antichrist, approaching
conflagration, &c., provoked those Pagans whom they did not
convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve; and the
Montanists were censured for disclosing too freely the dangerous
secret. See Mosheim, 413.]
17 (return) [ Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod
faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicacian certe et
inflexibilem obstinationem lebere puniri.]
The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the
offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity;
but they were continued from choice. By imitating the awful
secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians
had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred
institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 18
But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile
policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations. It was
concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed
to disclose. Their mistaken prudence afforded an opportunity for
malice to invent, and for suspicious credulity to believe, the
horrid tales which described the Christians as the most wicked of
human kind, who practised in their dark recesses every
abomination that a depraved fancy could suggest, and who
solicited the favor of their unknown God by the sacrifice of
every moral virtue. There were many who pretended to confess or
to relate the ceremonies of this abhorred society. It was
asserted, “that a new-born infant, entirely covered over with
flour, was presented, like some mystic symbol of initiation, to
the knife of the proselyte, who unknowingly inflicted many a
secret and mortal wound on the innocent victim of his error; that
as soon as the cruel deed was perpetrated, the sectaries drank up
the blood, greedily tore asunder the quivering members, and
pledged themselves to eternal secrecy, by a mutual consciousness
of guilt. It was as confidently affirmed, that this inhuman
sacrifice was succeeded by a suitable entertainment, in which
intemperance served as a provocative to brutal lust; till, at the
appointed moment, the lights were suddenly extinguished, shame
was banished, nature was forgotten; and, as accident might
direct, the darkness of the night was polluted by the incestuous
commerce of sisters and brothers, of sons and of mothers.” 19
18 (return) [ See Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p.
101, and Spanheim, Remarques sur les Cæsars de Julien, p. 468,
&c.]
19 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35, ii. 14.
Athenagoras, in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7, 8, 9.
Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10, 80, 31. The last of these writers
relates the accusation in the most elegant and circumstantial
manner. The answer of Tertullian is the boldest and most
vigorous.]
But the perusal of the ancient apologies was sufficient to remove
even the slightest suspicion from the mind of a candid adversary.
The Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal
from the voice of rumor to the equity of the magistrates. They
acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes
which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most
severe punishment. They provoke the punishment, and they
challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth
and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of probability,
than it is destitute of evidence; they ask, whether any one can
seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel,
which so frequently restrain the use of the most lawful
enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable
crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonor itself in
the eyes of its own members; and that a great number of persons
of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the
fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those
principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply
in their minds. 20 Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the
force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification,
unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists
themselves, who betrayed the common cause of religion, to gratify
their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was
sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that
the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals,
which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, were in
reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and
by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they
might deviate into the paths of heresy, were still actuated by
the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of
Christianity. 21 Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon
the church by the schismatics who had departed from its
communion, 22 and it was confessed on all sides, that the most
scandalous licentiousness of manners prevailed among great
numbers of those who affected the name of Christians. A Pagan
magistrate, who possessed neither leisure nor abilities to
discern the almost imperceptible line which divides the orthodox
faith from heretical pravity, might easily have imagined that
their mutual animosity had extorted the discovery of their common
guilt. It was fortunate for the repose, or at least for the
reputation, of the first Christians, that the magistrates
sometimes proceeded with more temper and moderation than is
usually consistent with religious zeal, and that they reported,
as the impartial result of their judicial inquiry, that the
sectaries, who had deserted the established worship, appeared to
them sincere in their professions, and blameless in their
manners; however they might incur, by their absurd and excessive
superstition, the censure of the laws. 23
20 (return) [ In the persecution of Lyons, some Gentile slaves
were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their
Christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren
of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indignation and
contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. i.]
21 (return) [ See Justin Martyr, Apolog. i. 35. Irenæus adv.
Hæres. i. 24. Clemens. Alexandrin. Stromat. l. iii. p. 438.
Euseb. iv. 8. It would be tedious and disgusting to relate all
that the succeeding writers have imagined, all that Epiphanius
has received, and all that Tillemont has copied. M. de Beausobre
(Hist. du Manicheisme, l. ix. c. 8, 9) has exposed, with great
spirit, the disingenuous arts of Augustin and Pope Leo I.]
22 (return) [ When Tertullian became a Montanist, he aspersed the
morals of the church which he had so resolutely defended. “Sed
majoris est Agape, quia per hanc adolescentes tui cum sororibus
dormiunt, appendices scilicet gulæ lascivia et luxuria.” De
Jejuniis c. 17. The 85th canon of the council of Illiberis
provides against the scandals which too often polluted the vigils
of the church, and disgraced the Christian name in the eyes of
unbelievers.]
23 (return) [ Tertullian (Apolog. c. 2) expatiates on the fair
and honorable testimony of Pliny, with much reason and some
declamation.]