Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 2 (1897).djvu/100

80 adversary. The Christians, with the intrepid security of in- nocence, appeal from the voice 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 provoke 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 probability than it is destitute of evidence; they ask whether any one can seriously believe that the pure and holy precepts of the Gospel, which so frequently restrain 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 number of persona of either sex, and every age and character, insensible to the fear of death or in- famy, 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 religion, to gratify their devout hatred to the domestic enemies of the church. It was sometimes faintly insinuated, and sometimes boldly asserted, that the same bloody sacrifices, and the same incestuous festivals, which were so falsely ascribed to the orthodox believers, 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 paths of heresy, were still actuated by the sentiments of men, and still governed by the precepts of Christianity." Accusations of a similar kind were retorted upon the church by the schismatics who had departed from its communion ; ^'' and it was confessed on all sides that the most

" In the penc-uiion of l.jroni, tome nenlile ilavn were compelled, br Iht trot ef lonuTEB. ID ac«UK (bar CbriiiiaD mulcr. The churcb of Lyoni, wrkka Ici ihdr bmhrm o< AiU, treat ibe horrid charge with prDp^r iatlipiatiao ui conifinpi Euvb. Hiiil. Bocia, v. i.

>A. Mign^^ ^oK 6, p 1'3'^]- EiucIl i«. ■. Il vDUld be lolioui nnd clJtgusiing [o rclAIc iill tliAl the lUccindlnK vriln* bate liiiuinol. all Ibai K[iij>hAniui luu recdvnl, >nd alt thai TillMnooi kM oopiod. M. d« BRiutobrr (Hiti, ilu Manichfiime. ). ik. c. t, 9) batcxpaiwd. aMh Kraal ■pint, die diiingcnucnu uU of Augusiin and Pope t.co I.

"wTicii Tonullkn txcamr a ^fonwniii, he upvned the montltcfthe ebaMh which lie hid to rfsolutdf MraitA, "Sed maJorU eti Anpe, atda pw h«M MiolnmMn till Cum ■otorlbu* dortnlunl. i^ipcndiea Kilica JEOM *

luauria." t^ jEjuniit. c 17.

jrpM kMivia M Ttw jjih canon of the council ef IlUberi* pnitim