imself, indirectly confesses, that he has related whatever might
redound to the glory, and that he has suppressed all that could tend to
the disgrace, of religion. [178] Such an acknowledgment will naturally
excite a suspicion that a writer who has so openly violated one of the
fundamental 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, [178a] which was less tinctured with
credulity, and more practised in the arts of courts, than that of
almost any of his contemporaries. On some particular occasions, when
the magistrates were exasperated by some personal motives of interest or
resentment, the rules of prudence, 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. [179] Two circumstances, however,
have been unwarily mentioned, which insinuate that the general treatment
of the Christians, who had been apprehended by the officers of justice,
was less intolerable than it is usually imagined to have been. 1. The
confessors who were condemned to work in the mines were permitted by the
humanity or the negligence of their keepers to build chapels, and freely
to profess their religion in the midst of those dreary habitations.
[180] 2. The bishops were obliged to check and to censure the forward
zeal of the Christians, who voluntarily threw themselves into the hands
of the magistrates. Some of these were persons oppressed by poverty
and debts, who blindly sought to terminate a miserable existence by a
glorious death. Others were allured by the hope that a short confinement
would expiate the sins of a whole life; and others again were actuated
by the less honorable motive of deriving a plentiful subsistence, and
perhaps a considerable profit, from the alms which the charity of the
faithful bestowed on the prisoners. [181] After the church had triumphed
over all her enemies, the interest as well as vanity of the captives
prompted them to magnify the merit of their respective sufferings. A
convenient distance of time or place gave an ample scope to the progress
of fiction; and the frequent instances which might be alleged of holy
martyrs, whose wounds had been instantly healed, whose strength