Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/202

 181- THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, at length terminated in religious worship. Among the ' christians who had pubHcly confessed their rehgious principles, those who (as it very frequently happened) had been dismissed from the tribunal or the prisons of the pagan magistrates, obtained such honours as were justly due to their imperfect martyrdom and their ge- nerous resolution. The most pious females courted the permission of imprinting kisses on the fetters which they had worn, and on the wounds which they had re- ceived. Their persons were esteemed holy, their deci- sions were admitted with deference, and they too often abused, by their spiritual pride and licentious manners, the preeminence which their zeal and intrepidity had acquired^. Distinctions like these, whilst they display the exalted merit, betray the inconsiderable number of those who suffered, and of those who died for the pro- fession of Christianity. Ardour of The sobcr discretion of the present age will more chrisdans readily censure than admire, but can more easily ad- mire than imitate, the fervour of the first christians, who, according to the lively expression of Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his own contemporaries solicited a bishopric ^ The epistles which Ignatius composed as he was carried in chains through the cities of Asia, breathe sentiments the most re})ugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature. He earnestly beseeches the Romans, that when he should be exposed in the amphitheatre, they would not, by their kind but unseasonable intercession, deprive him of the crown of glory ; and he declares his resolution to provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be employed as the instruments of his death ". y Cyprian, Epistol. 5, 6, 7. 22. 24. and de Unitat. Ecclesia. The num- ber of pretended martyis has been very much multipbed, by the custom which was introduced of bestowing that honourable name on confessors. ^ Certatim gloriosa in certamina ruebatur ; multoque avidius turn martyria gloriosis mortibus quaerebantur, quam nunc episcopatus pravis ambitionibus appetuntur. Sulpicius Severus, 1, ii. He might have omitted the word nunc. suited the purpose of bishop Pearson (see Vindicije Ignatianfe, part ii. c. 9.) to justify, by a profusion of examples and authorities, the sentiments of Ignatius.
 * See Epist. ad Roman, c. 4, 5. ap. Patres Apostol. torn. ii. p. 27. It