Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/177

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 159 prejudice. The provincial governors declared them- CHAP, selves ready to listen to any accusation that might affect the public safety : but as soon as they were informed that it was a question not of facts but of words, a dis- pute relating only to the interpretation of the Jewish laws and prophecies, they deemed it unworthy of the majesty of Rome seriously to discuss the obscure dif- ferences which might arise among a barbarous and superstitious people. The innocence of the first chris- tians was protected by ignorance and contempt; and the tribunal of the pagan magistrate often proved their most assured refuge against the fury of the synagogue *". If indeed we were disposed to adopt the traditions of a too credulous antiquity, we might relate the distant peregrinations, the wonderful achievements, and the various deaths of the twelve apostles : but a more ac- curate enquiry will induce us to doubt, whether any of those persons who had been witnesses to the miracles of Christ were permitted, beyond the limits of Pales- tine, to seal with their blood the truth of their testi- mony*^. From the ordinary term of human life, it may very naturally be presumed, that most of them were deceased before the discontent of the jews broke out into that furious war which was terminated only by the ruin of Jerusalem. During a long period, from the death of Christ to that memorable rebellion, we cannot discover any traces of Roman intolerance, unless they are to be found in the sudden, the transient, but the cruel persecution which was exercised by Nero against the christians of the capital, thirty-five years after the former, and only two years before the latter of those great events. The character of the philosophic his- <^ See in the eighteenth and twenty-fifth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles the behaviour of Gallio, proconsul of Achaia, and of Festus, pro- curator of Judea. '' In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria, the glory of martyrdom was confined to St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. James. It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the apostles by the more recent Gieeks, who prudently selected for the theatre of their preaching and suflTer- ings some remote country beyond the limits of the Roman empire. See Mosheim, p. 81. and Tillemont, Mem. Ecclesiast. torn. i. part iii.