derings 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.' 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 Esculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form." 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 The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats the Christians as a company of dreaming enthusiasts, δαιμόνιοι, αιθέριοι, αιθεροβατούντες, αεροβατούντες, &c, and in one place manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul was transported to the third heaven. In another place Tryphon, who personates a Christian, after deriding the gods of Paganism, proposes a mysterious oath, Υψιμέδοντα θεον, μεγαν, αμβροτον, ουρανιωνά, Υιον πατρος, πνευμα εκ πατρος εκπορευομενον Αριθμέειν με διδασκεις (is the profane answer of Critias), και ορκος η αριθμητική" ουκ οιδα γὰρ τι λέγεις" εν τρία, τρία εν! According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c. 70-85.) the demon, 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. 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." The union and assemblies of the Christians gerous The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in thus preferring his private sentiment to the national religion, was aggravated in considered a very high degree by the number and union of as a dan- the criminals. It is well known, and has been Conspiracy 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. 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 prohi n In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus treats the birth and character of our Saviour 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. 3. 23. The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company of one hundred and fifty firemen for the use of the city of Nicomedia. He disliked all associations. See Plin. Epist. 10. 42, 43. bited those secret and sometimes nocturnal meetings." 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 honour 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 every day 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," 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." manners ated. Their The precautions with which the disciples of calumni Christ performed the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were conBy imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians tinued from choice. P 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. 9 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, p. 413. Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod faterentur (such are the words of Pliny), pervicaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri. had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world. 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 favour 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. Their But the perusal of the ancient apologies was imprudent sufficient to remove even the slightest suspicion defence. from the mind of a candid adversary. The • See Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. 1. p. 101. and Spanheim, Remarques sur les Cæsars de Julien, p. 468, &c. See Justin Martyr, Apolog. 1. 35. 2. 14. Athenagoras in Legation, c. 27. Tertullian, Apolog. c. 7-9. Minucius Felix, c. 9, 10. 30, 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. Christians, with the intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the voice of rumour 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 restrained the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonour 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." 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.* 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. 5. 1. See Justin Martyr, Apolog. 1. 35. Irenæus, adv. Hæres. 1. 24. Clemens Alexandrin. Stromat. lib. 3. p. 438. Euseb. 4. 8. It would be tedious and dis |