Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/171

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 153 nature : they were illegal in their principle, and in their c F^ A P. consequences might become dangerous ; nor were the ^^^' emperors conscious that they violated the laws of jus- tice, when, for the peace of society, they prohibited those secret and sometimes nocturnal meetings''. The pious disobedience of the christians made their conduct, or perhaps their designs, appear in a much more seri- ous and criminal light; and the Roman princes, who might perhaps have suffered themselves to be disarmed by a ready submission, deeming their honour concerned in the execution of their commands, sometimes at- tempted, by rigorous punishments, to subdue this inde- pendent spirit, which boldly acknowledged an autho- rity superior to that of the magistrate. The extent and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it every day more deserving of his animadversion. We have already seen that the active and successful zeal of the christians had insensibly diffused them through every pi*ovince and almost every city of the empire. The new converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect themselves in an in- dissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which everywhere assumed a different character from the rest of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities'!, inspired the pagans with the apprehen- sion of some danger which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure. " Whatever," says Pliny, " may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared de- serving of punishment^" P The proconsul Pliny had published a general edict against unlawful meetings. The prudence of the christians suspended their agapje; but it was impossible for them to omit the exercise of public worship. 1 As the prophecies of the antichrist, approaching conflagration, etc. provoked those pagans whom they did not convert, they were mentioned with caution and reserve ; and llie Montanists were censured for disclosino- too freely the dangerous secret. See Mosheim, p. 413. ■■ Neque enim dubitabam, quodcunque esset quod faterentur, (such are the words of Pliny,) pervicaciam certe et inflexibilem obstinationem debere puniri.