Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/157

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 139 infidels, and they corrupt the simphcity of the gospel C II A P. by the refinements of human reason ^" ..* _._; Nor can it be affirmed with truth, that the advan- with ref^ard tages of bu'th and fortune were ahvays separated from fortune^" the profession of Christianity. Several Roman citizens were brought before the tribunal of PHny, and he soon discovered that a great number of persons of every order of men in Bithynia had deserted the religion of their ancestors'*. His unsuspected testimony may in this instance obtain more credit than the bold chal- lenge of TertuUian, when he addresses himself to the fears as well as to the humanity of the proconsul of Africa, by assuring him, that if he persists in his cruel intentions, he must decimate Carthage, and that he will find among the guilty many persons of his own rank, senators and matrons of noblest extraction, and the friends or relations of his most intimate friends*. It appears, however, that about forty years afterwards the emperor Valerian was persuaded of the truth of this assertion; since in one of his rescripts he evidently supposes, that senators, Roman knights, and ladies of quality, were engaged in the christian sect*^. The church still continued to increase its outward splendour as it lost its internal purity ; and in the reign of Diocle- tian, the palace, the courts of justice, and even the army, concealed a multitude of christians, who endea- voured to reconcile the interests of the present with those of a future life. And yet these exceptions are either too few in num- Christianity ber, or too recent in time, entirely to remove the im- "°^^, ,' ' _ . vourably putation of ignorance and obscurity which has been so received by arrogantly cast on the first proselytes of chi'istianity. anVsi'mple. = Eusebius, v. 28. It may be hoped, that none, except the heretics, gave occasion to the complaint of Celsus, (ap. Origen. 1. ii. p. 77.) that the ' christians were perpetually correcting and altering their gospels. '• Plin. Epist. X. 97. Fuerunt alii similis amentia;, cives Uomani Multi enim omnis ajtatis, omnis ordinh, utriusque sexias, etiam vocantur ia periculum et vocabuntur. «= TertuUian ad Scapulam. "^'et even his rhetoric rises no higher than to claim a tenth part of Carthage. ' Cyprian. Epist. 79.