Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/173

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 155 But the perusal of the ancient apologies was suffi- C H A P. cient to remove even the slightest suspicion from the ^^^' mind of a candid adversary. The christians, with the Their im- intrepid security of innocence, appeal from the voice I|"|:^'*^"' of rumour to the equity of the magistrates. They acknowledge, that if any proof can be produced of the crimes which calumny has imputed to them, they are worthy of the most severe punishment. They pro- voke the punishment, and they challenge the proof. At the same time they urge, with equal truth and propriety, that the charge is not less devoid of proba- bility, than it is destitute of evidence ; they ask, whe- ther any one can seriovisly believe that the pure and holy precepts of the gospel, which so frequently re- strain the use of the most lawful enjoyments, should inculcate the practice of the most abominable crimes; that a large society should resolve to dishonour itself in the eyes of its own members ; and that a great num- ber of persons of either sex, and every age and cha- racter, insensible to the fear of death or infamy, should consent to violate those principles which nature and education had imprinted most deeply in their minds". Nothing, it should seem, could weaken the force or destroy the effect of so unanswerable a justification, unless it were the injudicious conduct of the apologists themselves, who betrayed the common cause of reli- gion to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was sometimes faintly in- sinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox be- lievers, were in reality celebrated by the Marcionites, by the Carpocratians, and by several other sects of the Gnostics, who, notwithstanding they might deviate into The last of the writers relates the accusation in the most elegant and cir- cumstantial manner. The answer of TertuUian is the boldest and most vigorous. " In the persecution of Lyons, some gentile slaves were compelled, by the fear of tortures, to accuse their christian master. The church of Lyons, writing to their brethren of Asia, treat the horrid charge with proper indig- nation and contempt. Euseb. Hist. Eccles. v. 1.