Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/168

 150 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, conceived a sudden abhorrence to the mannerSj the dress, or the language of their native country^. Christianiiy The surpvise of the pajjans was soon succeeded by athefsm" resentment; and the most pious of men were exposed and mis- to the unjust but dangerous imputation of impiety, people and Malice and prejudice concurred in representing the philoso- christians as a society of atheists, who, by the most phcrs* . . daring attack on the religious constitution of the em- pire, had merited the severest animadversion of the civil magistrate. They had separated themselves (they gloried in the confession) from every mode of supersti- tion 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 fes- tivals, of altars and sacrifices'. The sages of Greece and Rome, who had elevated their minds to the con- templation 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 "". They were far from admitting the prejudices of mankind as the standard of truth, but they considered them as flowing from the h From the arguments of Celsus, as they are represented and refuted by Origen, (1. 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 Winucius Foelix (c. 5, 6.) a fair and not inelegant description of the popular sentiments with regard to the desertion of the established worship. ' Cur nuUas aras habent? templa nulla? nulla nota simulacra? Uude autem, vel quis ille, aut ubi, Deus unicus, solitarius, destiiutus ? Mi- nucius Foelix, c. 10. The pagan interlocutor goes on to make a distinction in favour of the jews, who had once a temple, altars, victims, etc. '' It is difficult, says Plato, to attain, and dangerous to publish, the knowledge of the true God. See the Theologie des Philosophes, in the abbe d'Olivet's French translation of Tully de Natura Deorum, torn. i. p. 275.