Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/203

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 185 Some stories are related of the coui"age of martyrs, CHAT who actually performed what Ignatius had intended ; _J_1. who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the exe- cutioner to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which were kindled to consume them, and disco- vered a sensation of joy and pleasure in the midst of the most exquisite tortures. Several examples have been preserved of a zeal impatient of those restiaints which the emperors had provided for the security of the church. The christians sometimes supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely disturbed the public service of paganism **, and rushing in crowds round the tribunal of the magi- strates, called upon them to pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behaviour of the chris- tians was too remai'kable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers ; but they seem to have consi- dered it with much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate de- spair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy '. " Unhappy men," exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the christians of Asia, " unhappy men, if you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices'*?" He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and pious historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but them- selves, the imperial laws not having made any provision for so unexpected a case : condemning therefore a few, I* The story of Polyeuctes, on which Corne'iUe has founded a very beau- tiful tragedy, is one of the most celebrated, though not perhaps the most autlieiitic, instances of this excessive zeal. We should observe, that the sixtieth canon of the council of Uliberis refuses the title of martyrs to those who exposed themselves to death by publicly destroying the idols. "^ See Epictetus, 1. iv. c. 7. (though there is some doubt whether he alludes to the christians ;) Marcus Antoninus de Rebus suis, 1. xi. c. 3 ; Lu- cian in Peregrin. ^ Tertullian ad Scapul. c. 5. The learned are divided between three persons of the same name, who were all proconsuls of Asia. I am inclined to ascribe this siory to Antoninus Pius, who was afterwards emperor ; and who may have governed Asia, under the reign of Trajan.