Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 2.djvu/240

 222 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, flict on the human body. These melancholy scenes • miglu be enlivened by a crowd of visions and miracles, destined either to delay the death, to celebrate the tri- umph, or to discover the relics, of those canonized saints who suffered for the name of Christ. But I cannot determine what I oucrht to transcribe, till I am satisfied how much I ought to believe. The gravest of the ecclesiastical historians, Eusebius himself, indi- rectly confesses, that he has related whatever might re- dound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to the disgrace, of religion ^ Such an ac- knowledgement will naturally excite a suspicion, that a writer who has so openly violated one of the funda- mental laws of history, has not paid a very strict regard to the observance of the other : and the suspicion will derive additional credit from the character of Eusebius, which was less tinctured with credulity, and more prac- tised in the arts of courts, than that of almost any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when the magistrates were exasperated by some per- sonal motives of interest or resentment ; when the zeal of the martyrs urged them to forget the rules of pru- dence and perhaps of decency, to overturn the altars, to pour out imprecations against the emperors, or to strike the judge as he sat on his tribunal ; it may be presumed that every mode of torture, which cruelty could invent or constancy could endure, was exhausted on those devoted victims % Two circumstances, how- ever, have been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment of the christians who had o^ ■■ Such is the fair deduction from two remarkable passages in Eusebius, 1. viii. c. 2, and de JMartyr. Palestin. c. 12. The prudence of the historian has exposed his own character to censure and suspicion. It was well known that he himself had been thrown into prison ; and it was suggested that he had purchased his deliverance by some dishonourable compliance. The reproach was urged in his lifetime, and even in his presence, at the council of Tyre. See Tillemont, Memoires Ecclesiastiques, torn. viii. part i. p. 67. ' The ancient, and perhaps authentic account of the sufferings of Tarachus and his companions, (Acta Sincera Ruinart, p. 419 — 448.) is filled with strong expressions of resentment and contempt, which could not fail of irri- tating the magistrate. The behaviour of ^Edesius to Hierocles, prefect of Egypt, was still more extraordinary, Xoyotf re Kal tpyoig tov hKaarriv. . . 7rfpi/3a'<<>7'. Euseb. de Martyr. Palestin. c. 5.