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 chap, xxxvii] OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 97 After the invention of printing, 121 the editors of the Greek Testament yielded to their own prejudices, or those of the times ; 122 and the pious fraud, which was embraced with equal zeal at Kome and at Geneva, has been infinitely multiplied in every country and every language of modern Europe. The example of fraud must excite suspicion ; and the specious and mir- miracles by which the African Catholics have defended the truth aces and justice of their cause may be ascribed, with more reason, to their own industry than to the visible protection of Heaven. Yet the historian, who views this religious conflict with an impartial eye, may condescend to mention one preternatural event which will edify the devout and surprise the incredulous. Tipasa, 123 a maritime colony of Mauritania, sixteen miles to the east of Caesarea, had been distinguished, in every age, by the orthodox zeal of its inhabitants. They had braved the fury of the Donatists ; 124 they resisted, or eluded, the tyranny of the Arians. The town was deserted on the approach of an heretical bishop : most of the inhabitants who could procure ships passed over to the coast of Spain ; and the unhappy remnant, refusing all communion with the usurper, still presumed to hold their pious, but illegal, assemblies. Their disobedience exasperated the cruelty of Hunneric. A military count was dispatched from Carthage to Tipasa ; he collected the Catholics in the Forum, and, in the presence of the whole province, deprived the guilty of their right hands and their tongues. But the holy confessors continued to speak without tongues ; and this miracle is attested by Victor, an African bishop, who published an history of the persecution within two years after the event. 125 "If any one," u.d. 486-7] 121 The art which the Germans had invented was applied in Italy to the pro- fane writers of Rome and Greece. The original Greek of the New Testament was published about the same time (a.d. 1514, 1516, 1520) by the industry of Erasmus and the munificence of cardinal Ximenes. The Complutensian Polyglot cost the cardinal 50,000 ducats. See Mattaire, Annal. Typograph. torn. ii. p. 2-8, 125-133 ; and Wetstein, Prolegomena, p. 116-127. 122 The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus ; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors ; the typo- graphical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing a crotchet ; and the de- liberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza. 123 pii n. Hist. Natural, v. 1. Itinerar. Wesseling, p. 15. Cellarius, Geograph. Antiq. torn. ii. part ii. p. 127. This Tipasa (which must not be confounded with another in Numidia) was a town of some note, since Vespasian endowed it with the right of Latium. 124 Optatus Milevitanus de Schism. Donatist. 1. ii. p. 38. 125 Victor Vitensis, v. 6, p. 76. Ruinart, p. 483-487. vol. iv. — 7