e seasonable tempest of
rain and hail, of thunder and of lightning, and the dismay and defeat of
the barbarians, have been celebrated by the eloquence of several Pagan
writers. If there were any Christians in that army, it was natural that
they should ascribe some merit to the fervent prayers, which, in the
moment of danger, they had offered up for their own and the public
safety. But we are still assured by monuments of brass and marble, by
the Imperial medals, and by the Antonine column, that neither the prince
nor the people entertained any sense of this signal obligation, since
they unanimously attribute their deliverance to the providence of
Jupiter, and to the interposition of Mercury. During the whole course of
his reign, Marcus despised the Christians as a philosopher, and punished
them as a sovereign. [106] [106a]

[Footnote 105: The testimony given by Pontius Pilate is first mentioned
by Justin. The successive improvements which the story acquired (as
if has passed through the hands of Tertullian, Eusebius, Epiphanius,
Chrysostom, Orosius, Gregory of Tours, and the authors of the several
editions of the acts of Pilate) are very fairly stated by Dom Calmet
Dissertat. sur l'Ecriture, tom. iii. p. 651, &c.]

[Footnote 106: On this miracle, as it is commonly called, of the
thundering legion, see the admirable criticism of Mr. Moyle, in his
Works, vol. ii. p. 81--390.]

[Footnote 106a]: Gibbon, with this phrase, and that below, which admits
the injustice of Marcus, has dexterously glossed over one of the most
remarkable facts in the early Christian history, that the reign of the
wisest and most humane of the heathen emperors was the most fatal to the
Christians. Most writers have ascribed the persecutions under Marcus to
the latent bigotry of his character; Mosheim, to the influence of the
philosophic party; but the fact is admitted by all. A late writer (Mr.
Waddington, Hist. of the Church, p. 47) has not scrupled to assert, that
"this prince polluted every year of a long reign with innocent blood;"
but the causes as well as the date of the persecutions authorized or
permitted by Marcus are equally uncertain. Of the Asiatic edict recorded
by Melito. the date is unknown, nor is it quite clear that it was an
Imperial edict. If it was the act under which Polycarp suffered, his
martyrdom is placed by Ruinart in the sixth, by Mosheim in the ninth,
year of the reign of Marcus. The martyrs of Vienne and Lyons are
assi