Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/167

 XVI. OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 149 severe in those of their ancestors. The voice of ora- C H P. cles, 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 polythei^its 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 ac- knowledged, 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, af- forded not any favour 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 relisious in- stitutions of their country, and presumptuously de- spised 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 dis- dain to seek an asylum in those of Athens or Carthage. Every christian rejected with contempt the supersti- tions of his fiimily, 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 judgement. Though his situation might excite the pity, his arguments could never reach the understanding, either of the philosophic or of the be- lieving part of the pagan world. To their apprehen- sions, it was no less a matter of surprise, that any indi- viduals should entertain scruples against complyin<f with the established mode of worship, than if they hatl