owever they may
deride the miracles, would have esteemed the virtues, of the new sect;
and that the magistrates, instead of persecuting, would have protected
an order of men who yielded the most passive obedience to the laws,
though they declined the active cares of war and government. If, on the
other hand, we recollect the universal toleration of Polytheism, as it
was invariably maintained by the faith of the people, the incredulity of
philosophers, and the policy of the Roman senate and emperors, we are at
a loss to discover what new offence the Christians had committed, what
new provocation could exasperate the mild indifference of antiquity,
and what new motives could urge the Roman princes, who beheld without
concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in peace under their
gentle sway, to inflict a severe punishment on any part of their
subjects, who had chosen for themselves a singular but an inoffensive
mode of faith and worship.

The religious policy of the ancient world seems to have assumed a more
stern and intolerant character, to oppose the progress of Christianity.
About fourscore years after the death of Christ, his innocent disciples
were punished with death by the sentence of a proconsul of the most
amiable and philosophic character, and according to the laws of
an emperor distinguished by the wisdom and justice of his general
administration. The apologies which were repeatedly addressed to the
successors of Trajan are filled with the most pathetic complaints, that
the Christians, who obeyed the dictates, and solicited the liberty,
of conscience, were alone, among all the subjects of the Roman empire,
excluded from the common benefits of their auspicious government. The
deaths of a few eminent martyrs have been recorded with care; and from
the time that Christianity was invested with the supreme power, the
governors of the church have been no less diligently employed in
displaying the cruelty, than in imitating the conduct, of their Pagan
adversaries. To separate (if it be possible) a few authentic as well as
interesting facts from an undigested mass of fiction and error, and
to relate, in a clear and rational manner, the causes, the extent, the
duration, and the most important circumstances of the persecutions to
which the first Christians were exposed, is the design of the present
chapter. *

The sectaries of a persecuted religion, depressed by fear animated with
resentment, and perhaps heated b