Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/169

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 151 original disposition of human nature; and they sup- CHAP, posed that any popular mode of faith and worship ^^^' which presumed to disclaim the assistance of the senses, would, in proportion as it receded from superstition, find itself incapable of restraining the wanderings 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 anni- hilated 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 mys- terious 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 resem- blance, 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 ' The author of the Philopatris perpetually treats the christians as a com- pany of dreaming enthusiasts, Cai/iovioi, al^ipioi, ai^ipojSaToiivTiS, aipo- fiaTOvvTtg, etc.; and in one place manifestly alludes to the vision in which St. Paul was transported to the third heaven. In another place, Triephon, who personates a christian, after deriding the gods of paganism, proposes a mysterious oath : 'pifiec6vTa ^tov, fi'tyav, a[i[3poTOv, ovpavioiva, Yiov Trarpoq, nvivfia tK TraTpog Ikt: opivofiivov "Ev IK Tpiwv, Kai t? tpog rpia. 'Apt^/jieHv fu cicdfTKttg, is the profane answer of Critias, Kai opKog i) dpuffiTfTiKr)' ovK olSa ydp ri Xiyiig' 'iv rpia, rp'ia tv ! '" According to Justin Martyr, ( Apolog. ilajor, c. 70—85.) the demon, who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which migiit deter, though by different means, both the people and the philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.