Chapter XXVIII: Destruction Of Paganism.—Part III

In the cruel reigns of Decius and Diocletian, Christianity had
been proscribed, as a revolt from the ancient and hereditary
religion of the empire; and the unjust suspicions which were
entertained of a dark and dangerous faction, were, in some
measure, countenanced by the inseparable union and rapid
conquests of the Catholic church. But the same excuses of fear
and ignorance cannot be applied to the Christian emperors who
violated the precepts of humanity and of the Gospel. The
experience of ages had betrayed the weakness, as well as folly,
of Paganism; the light of reason and of faith had already
exposed, to the greatest part of mankind, the vanity of idols;
and the declining sect, which still adhered to their worship,
might have been permitted to enjoy, in peace and obscurity, the
religious costumes of their ancestors. Had the Pagans been
animated by the undaunted zeal which possessed the minds of the
primitive believers, the triumph of the Church must have been
stained with blood; and the martyrs of Jupiter and Apollo might
have embraced the glorious opportunity of devoting their lives
and fortunes at the foot of their altars. But such obstinate zeal
was not congenial to the loose and careless temper of Polytheism.
The violent and repeated strokes of the orthodox princes were
broken by the soft and yielding substance against which they were
directed; and the ready obedience of the Pagans protected them
from the pains and penalties of the Theodosian Code. 57 Instead
of asserting, that the authority of the gods was superior to that
of the emperor, they desisted, with a plaintive murmur, from the
use of those sacred rites which their sovereign had condemned. If
they were sometimes tempted by a sally of passion, or by the
hopes of concealment, to indulge their favorite superstition,
their humble repentance disarmed the severity of the Christian
magistrate, and they seldom refused to atone for their rashness,
by submitting, with some secret reluctance, to the yoke of the
Gospel. The churches were filled with the increasing multitude of
these unworthy proselytes, who had conformed, from temporal
motives, to the reigning religion; and whilst they devoutly
imitated the postures, and recited the prayers, of the faithful,
they satisfied their conscience by the silent and sincere
invocation of the gods of antiquity. 58 If the Pagans wanted
patience to suffer they wanted spirit to resist; and the
scattered myriads, who deplored the ruin of the temples, yielded,
without a contest, to the fortune of their adversaries. The
disorderly opposition 59 of the peasants of Syria, and the
populace of Alexandria, to the rage of private fanaticism, was
silenced by the name and authority of the emperor. The Pagans of
the West, without contributing to the elevation of Eugenius,
disgraced, by their partial attachment, the cause and character
of the usurper. The clergy vehemently exclaimed, that he
aggravated the crime of rebellion by the guilt of apostasy; that,
by his permission, the altar of victory was again restored; and
that the idolatrous symbols of Jupiter and Hercules were
displayed in the field, against the invincible standard of the
cross. But the vain hopes of the Pagans were soon annihilated by
the defeat of Eugenius; and they were left exposed to the
resentment of the conqueror, who labored to deserve the favor of
Heaven by the extirpation of idolatry. 60

57 (return) [ Orosius, l. vii. c. 28, p. 537. Augustin (Enarrat.
in Psalm cxl apud Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iv. p. 458)
insults their cowardice. “Quis eorum comprehensus est in
sacrificio (cum his legibus sta prohiberentur) et non negavit?”]

58 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 17, 18) mentions, without
censure the occasional conformity, and as it were theatrical
play, of these hypocrites.]

59 (return) [ Libanius concludes his apology (p. 32) by declaring
to the emperor, that unless he expressly warrants the destruction
of the temples, the proprietors will defend themselves and the
laws.]

60 (return) [ Paulinus, in Vit. Ambros. c. 26. Augustin de
Civitat. Dei, l. v. c. 26. Theodoret, l. v. c. 24.]

A nation of slaves is always prepared to applaud the clemency of
their master, who, in the abuse of absolute power, does not
proceed to the last extremes of injustice and oppression.
Theodosius might undoubtedly have proposed to his Pagan subjects
the alternative of baptism or of death; and the eloquent Libanius
has praised the moderation of a prince, who never enacted, by any
positive law, that all his subjects should immediately embrace
and practise the religion of their sovereign. 61 The profession
of Christianity was not made an essential qualification for the
enjoyment of the civil rights of society, nor were any peculiar
hardships imposed on the sectaries, who credulously received the
fables of Ovid, and obstinately rejected the miracles of the
Gospel. The palace, the schools, the army, and the senate, were
filled with declared and devout Pagans; they obtained, without
distinction, the civil and military honors of the empire. 6111
Theodosius distinguished his liberal regard for virtue and genius
by the consular dignity, which he bestowed on Symmachus; 62 and
by the personal friendship which he expressed to Libanius; 63 and
the two eloquent apologists of Paganism were never required
either to change or to dissemble their religious opinions. The
Pagans were indulged in the most licentious freedom of speech and
writing; the historical and philosophic remains of Eunapius,
Zosimus, 64 and the fanatic teachers of the school of Plato,
betray the most furious animosity, and contain the sharpest
invectives, against the sentiments and conduct of their
victorious adversaries. If these audacious libels were publicly
known, we must applaud the good sense of the Christian princes,
who viewed, with a smile of contempt, the last struggles of
superstition and despair. 65 But the Imperial laws, which
prohibited the sacrifices and ceremonies of Paganism, were
rigidly executed; and every hour contributed to destroy the
influence of a religion, which was supported by custom, rather
than by argument. The devotion or the poet, or the philosopher,
may be secretly nourished by prayer, meditation, and study; but
the exercise of public worship appears to be the only solid
foundation of the religious sentiments of the people, which
derive their force from imitation and habit. The interruption of
that public exercise may consummate, in the period of a few
years, the important work of a national revolution. The memory of
theological opinions cannot long be preserved, without the
artificial helps of priests, of temples, and of books. 66 The
ignorant vulgar, whose minds are still agitated by the blind
hopes and terrors of superstition, will be soon persuaded by
their superiors to direct their vows to the reigning deities of
the age; and will insensibly imbibe an ardent zeal for the
support and propagation of the new doctrine, which spiritual
hunger at first compelled them to accept. The generation that
arose in the world after the promulgation of the Imperial laws,
was attracted within the pale of the Catholic church: and so
rapid, yet so gentle, was the fall of Paganism, that only
twenty-eight years after the death of Theodosius, the faint and
minute vestiges were no longer visible to the eye of the
legislator. 67

61 (return) [ Libanius suggests the form of a persecuting edict,
which Theodosius might enact, (pro Templis, p. 32;) a rash joke,
and a dangerous experiment. Some princes would have taken his
advice.]

6111 (return) [ The most remarkable instance of this, at a much
later period, occurs in the person of Merobaudes, a general and a
poet, who flourished in the first half of the fifth century. A
statue in honor of Merobaudes was placed in the Forum of Trajan,
of which the inscription is still extant. Fragments of his poems
have been recovered by the industry and sagacity of Niebuhr. In
one passage, Merobaudes, in the genuine heathen spirit,
attributes the ruin of the empire to the abolition of Paganism,
and almost renews the old accusation of Atheism against
Christianity. He impersonates some deity, probably Discord, who
summons Bellona to take arms for the destruction of Rome; and in
a strain of fierce irony recommends to her other fatal measures,
to extirpate the gods of Rome:—

Roma, ipsique tremant furialia murmura reges. Jam superos terris
atque hospita numina pelle: Romanos populare Deos, et nullus in
aris Vestoe exoratoe fotus strue palleat ignis. Ilis instructa
dolis palatia celsa subibo; Majorum mores, et pectora prisca
fugabo Funditus; atque simul, nullo discrimine rerum, Spernantur
fortes, nec sic reverentia justis. Attica neglecto pereat facundia
Phoebo: Indignis contingat honos, et pondera rerum; Non virtus sed
casus agat; tristique cupido; Pectoribus saevi demens furor
aestuet aevi; Omniaque hoec sine mente Jovis, sine numine sumimo.

Merobaudes in Niebuhr’s edit. of the Byzantines, p. 14.—M.]

62 (return) [ Denique pro meritis terrestribus aequa rependens

Munera, sacricolis summos impertit honores.
Dux bonus, et certare sinit cum laude suorum, Nec pago implicitos
per debita culmina mundi Ire viros prohibet. Ipse magistratum tibi
consulis, ipse tribunal
Contulit. Prudent. in Symmach. i. 617, &c.

Note: I have inserted some lines omitted by Gibbon.—M.]

63 (return) [ Libanius (pro Templis, p. 32) is proud that
Theodosius should thus distinguish a man, who even in his
presence would swear by Jupiter. Yet this presence seems to be no
more than a figure of rhetoric.]

64 (return) [ Zosimus, who styles himself Count and Ex-advocate
of the Treasury, reviles, with partial and indecent bigotry, the
Christian princes, and even the father of his sovereign. His work
must have been privately circulated, since it escaped the
invectives of the ecclesiastical historians prior to Evagrius,
(l. iii. c. 40-42,) who lived towards the end of the sixth
century. * Note: Heyne in his Disquisitio in Zosimum Ejusque
Fidem. places Zosimum towards the close of the fifth century.
Zosim. Heynii, p. xvii.—M.]

65 (return) [ Yet the Pagans of Africa complained, that the times
would not allow them to answer with freedom the City of God; nor
does St. Augustin (v. 26) deny the charge.]

66 (return) [ The Moors of Spain, who secretly preserved the
Mahometan religion above a century, under the tyranny of the
Inquisition, possessed the Koran, with the peculiar use of the
Arabic tongue. See the curious and honest story of their
expulsion in Geddes, (Miscellanies, vol. i. p. 1-198.)]

67 (return) [ Paganos qui supersunt, quanquam jam nullos esse
credamus, &c. Cod. Theodos. l. xvi. tit. x. leg. 22, A.D. 423.
The younger Theodosius was afterwards satisfied, that his
judgment had been somewhat premature. Note: The statement of
Gibbon is much too strongly worded. M. Beugnot has traced the
vestiges of Paganism in the West, after this period, in monuments
and inscriptions with curious industry. Compare likewise note, p.
112, on the more tardy progress of Christianity in the rural
districts.—M.]

The ruin of the Pagan religion is described by the sophists as a
dreadful and amazing prodigy, which covered the earth with
darkness, and restored the ancient dominion of chaos and of
night. They relate, in solemn and pathetic strains, that the
temples were converted into sepulchres, and that the holy places,
which had been adorned by the statues of the gods, were basely
polluted by the relics of Christian martyrs. “The monks” (a race
of filthy animals, to whom Eunapius is tempted to refuse the name
of men) “are the authors of the new worship, which, in the place
of those deities who are conceived by the understanding, has
substituted the meanest and most contemptible slaves. The heads,
salted and pickled, of those infamous malefactors, who for the
multitude of their crimes have suffered a just and ignominious
death; their bodies still marked by the impression of the lash,
and the scars of those tortures which were inflicted by the
sentence of the magistrate; such” (continues Eunapius) “are the
gods which the earth produces in our days; such are the martyrs,
the supreme arbitrators of our prayers and petitions to the
Deity, whose tombs are now consecrated as the objects of the
veneration of the people.” 68 Without approving the malice, it is
natural enough to share the surprise of the sophist, the
spectator of a revolution, which raised those obscure victims of
the laws of Rome to the rank of celestial and invisible
protectors of the Roman empire. The grateful respect of the
Christians for the martyrs of the faith, was exalted, by time and
victory, into religious adoration; and the most illustrious of
the saints and prophets were deservedly associated to the honors
of the martyrs. One hundred and fifty years after the glorious
deaths of St. Peter and St. Paul, the Vatican and the Ostian road
were distinguished by the tombs, or rather by the trophies, of
those spiritual heroes. 69 In the age which followed the
conversion of Constantine, the emperors, the consuls, and the
generals of armies, devoutly visited the sepulchres of a
tentmaker and a fisherman; 70 and their venerable bones were
deposited under the altars of Christ, on which the bishops of the
royal city continually offered the unbloody sacrifice. 71 The new
capital of the Eastern world, unable to produce any ancient and
domestic trophies, was enriched by the spoils of dependent
provinces. The bodies of St. Andrew, St. Luke, and St. Timothy,
had reposed near three hundred years in the obscure graves, from
whence they were transported, in solemn pomp, to the church of
the apostles, which the magnificence of Constantine had founded
on the banks of the Thracian Bosphorus. 72 About fifty years
afterwards, the same banks were honored by the presence of
Samuel, the judge and prophet of the people of Israel. His ashes,
deposited in a golden vase, and covered with a silken veil, were
delivered by the bishops into each other’s hands. The relics of
Samuel were received by the people with the same joy and
reverence which they would have shown to the living prophet; the
highways, from Palestine to the gates of Constantinople, were
filled with an uninterrupted procession; and the emperor Arcadius
himself, at the head of the most illustrious members of the
clergy and senate, advanced to meet his extraordinary guest, who
had always deserved and claimed the homage of kings. 73 The
example of Rome and Constantinople confirmed the faith and
discipline of the Catholic world. The honors of the saints and
martyrs, after a feeble and ineffectual murmur of profane reason,
74 were universally established; and in the age of Ambrose and
Jerom, something was still deemed wanting to the sanctity of a
Christian church, till it had been consecrated by some portion of
holy relics, which fixed and inflamed the devotion of the
faithful.

68 (return) [ See Eunapius, in the Life of the sophist Aedesius;
in that of Eustathius he foretells the ruin of Paganism.]

69 (return) [ Caius, (apud Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. ii. c. 25,) a
Roman presbyter, who lived in the time of Zephyrinus, (A.D.
202-219,) is an early witness of this superstitious practice.]

70 (return) [ Chrysostom. Quod Christus sit Deus. Tom. i. nov.
edit. No. 9. I am indebted for this quotation to Benedict the
XIVth’s pastoral letter on the Jubilee of the year 1759. See the
curious and entertaining letters of M. Chais, tom. iii.]

71 (return) [ Male facit ergo Romanus episcopus? qui, super
mortuorum hominum, Petri & Pauli, secundum nos, ossa veneranda
... offeri Domino sacrificia, et tumulos eorum, Christi
arbitratur altaria. Jerom. tom. ii. advers. Vigilant. p. 183.]

72 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) bears witness to these
translations, which are neglected by the ecclesiastical
historians. The passion of St. Andrew at Patrae is described in
an epistle from the clergy of Achaia, which Baronius (Annal.
Eccles. A.D. 60, No. 34) wishes to believe, and Tillemont is
forced to reject. St. Andrew was adopted as the spiritual founder
of Constantinople, (Mem. Eccles. tom. i. p. 317-323, 588-594.)]

73 (return) [ Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) pompously describes the
translation of Samuel, which is noticed in all the chronicles of
the times.]

74 (return) [ The presbyter Vigilantius, the Protestant of his
age, firmly, though ineffectually, withstood the superstition of
monks, relics, saints, fasts, &c., for which Jerom compares him
to the Hydra, Cerberus, the Centaurs, &c., and considers him only
as the organ of the Daemon, (tom. ii. p. 120-126.) Whoever will
peruse the controversy of St. Jerom and Vigilantius, and St.
Augustin’s account of the miracles of St. Stephen, may speedily
gain some idea of the spirit of the Fathers.]

In the long period of twelve hundred years, which elapsed between
the reign of Constantine and the reformation of Luther, the
worship of saints and relics corrupted the pure and perfect
simplicity of the Christian model: and some symptoms of
degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which
adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation.

I. The satisfactory experience, that the relics of saints were
more valuable than gold or precious stones, 75 stimulated the
clergy to multiply the treasures of the church. Without much
regard for truth or probability, they invented names for
skeletons, and actions for names. The fame of the apostles, and
of the holy men who had imitated their virtues, was darkened by
religious fiction. To the invincible band of genuine and
primitive martyrs, they added myriads of imaginary heroes, who
had never existed, except in the fancy of crafty or credulous
legendaries; and there is reason to suspect, that Tours might not
be the only diocese in which the bones of a malefactor were
adored, instead of those of a saint. 76 A superstitious practice,
which tended to increase the temptations of fraud, and credulity,
insensibly extinguished the light of history, and of reason, in
the Christian world.

75 (return) [ M. de Beausobre (Hist. du Manicheisme, tom. ii. p.
648) has applied a worldly sense to the pious observation of the
clergy of Smyrna, who carefully preserved the relics of St.
Polycarp the martyr.]

76 (return) [ Martin of Tours (see his Life, c. 8, by Sulpicius
Severus) extorted this confession from the mouth of the dead man.
The error is allowed to be natural; the discovery is supposed to
be miraculous. Which of the two was likely to happen most
frequently?]

II. But the progress of superstition would have been much less
rapid and victorious, if the faith of the people had not been
assisted by the seasonable aid of visions and miracles, to
ascertain the authenticity and virtue of the most suspicious
relics. In the reign of the younger Theodosius, Lucian, 77 a
presbyter of Jerusalem, and the ecclesiastical minister of the
village of Caphargamala, about twenty miles from the city,
related a very singular dream, which, to remove his doubts, had
been repeated on three successive Saturdays. A venerable figure
stood before him, in the silence of the night, with a long beard,
a white robe, and a gold rod; announced himself by the name of
Gamaliel, and revealed to the astonished presbyter, that his own
corpse, with the bodies of his son Abibas, his friend Nicodemus,
and the illustrious Stephen, the first martyr of the Christian
faith, were secretly buried in the adjacent field. He added, with
some impatience, that it was time to release himself and his
companions from their obscure prison; that their appearance would
be salutary to a distressed world; and that they had made choice
of Lucian to inform the bishop of Jerusalem of their situation
and their wishes. The doubts and difficulties which still
retarded this important discovery were successively removed by
new visions; and the ground was opened by the bishop, in the
presence of an innumerable multitude. The coffins of Gamaliel, of
his son, and of his friend, were found in regular order; but when
the fourth coffin, which contained the remains of Stephen, was
shown to the light, the earth trembled, and an odor, such as that
of paradise, was smelt, which instantly cured the various
diseases of seventy-three of the assistants. The companions of
Stephen were left in their peaceful residence of Caphargamala:
but the relics of the first martyr were transported, in solemn
procession, to a church constructed in their honor on Mount Sion;
and the minute particles of those relics, a drop of blood, 78 or
the scrapings of a bone, were acknowledged, in almost every
province of the Roman world, to possess a divine and miraculous
virtue. The grave and learned Augustin, 79 whose understanding
scarcely admits the excuse of credulity, has attested the
innumerable prodigies which were performed in Africa by the
relics of St. Stephen; and this marvellous narrative is inserted
in the elaborate work of the City of God, which the bishop of
Hippo designed as a solid and immortal proof of the truth of
Christianity. Augustin solemnly declares, that he has selected
those miracles only which were publicly certified by the persons
who were either the objects, or the spectators, of the power of
the martyr. Many prodigies were omitted, or forgotten; and Hippo
had been less favorably treated than the other cities of the
province. And yet the bishop enumerates above seventy miracles,
of which three were resurrections from the dead, in the space of
two years, and within the limits of his own diocese. 80 If we
enlarge our view to all the dioceses, and all the saints, of the
Christian world, it will not be easy to calculate the fables, and
the errors, which issued from this inexhaustible source. But we
may surely be allowed to observe, that a miracle, in that age of
superstition and credulity, lost its name and its merit, since it
could scarcely be considered as a deviation from the ordinary and
established laws of nature.

77 (return) [ Lucian composed in Greek his original narrative,
which has been translated by Avitus, and published by Baronius,
(Annal. Eccles. A.D. 415, No. 7-16.) The Benedictine editors of
St. Augustin have given (at the end of the work de Civitate Dei)
two several copies, with many various readings. It is the
character of falsehood to be loose and inconsistent. The most
incredible parts of the legend are smoothed and softened by
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. ii. p. 9, &c.)]

78 (return) [ A phial of St. Stephen’s blood was annually
liquefied at Naples, till he was superseded by St. Jamarius,
(Ruinart. Hist. Persecut. Vandal p. 529.)]

79 (return) [ Augustin composed the two-and-twenty books de
Civitate Dei in the space of thirteen years, A.D. 413-426.
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 608, &c.) His learning is
too often borrowed, and his arguments are too often his own; but
the whole work claims the merit of a magnificent design,
vigorously, and not unskilfully, executed.]

80 (return) [ See Augustin de Civitat. Dei, l. xxii. c. 22, and
the Appendix, which contains two books of St. Stephen’s miracles,
by Evodius, bishop of Uzalis. Freculphus (apud Basnage, Hist. des
Juifs, tom. vii. p. 249) has preserved a Gallic or a Spanish
proverb, “Whoever pretends to have read all the miracles of St.
Stephen, he lies.”]

III. The innumerable miracles, of which the tombs of the martyrs
were the perpetual theatre, revealed to the pious believer the
actual state and constitution of the invisible world; and his
religious speculations appeared to be founded on the firm basis
of fact and experience. Whatever might be the condition of vulgar
souls, in the long interval between the dissolution and the
resurrection of their bodies, it was evident that the superior
spirits of the saints and martyrs did not consume that portion of
their existence in silent and inglorious sleep. 81 It was evident
(without presuming to determine the place of their habitation, or
the nature of their felicity) that they enjoyed the lively and
active consciousness of their happiness, their virtue, and their
powers; and that they had already secured the possession of their
eternal reward. The enlargement of their intellectual faculties
surpassed the measure of the human imagination; since it was
proved by experience, that they were capable of hearing and
understanding the various petitions of their numerous votaries;
who, in the same moment of time, but in the most distant parts of
the world, invoked the name and assistance of Stephen or of
Martin. 82 The confidence of their petitioners was founded on the
persuasion, that the saints, who reigned with Christ, cast an eye
of pity upon earth; that they were warmly interested in the
prosperity of the Catholic Church; and that the individuals, who
imitated the example of their faith and piety, were the peculiar
and favorite objects of their most tender regard. Sometimes,
indeed, their friendship might be influenced by considerations of
a less exalted kind: they viewed with partial affection the
places which had been consecrated by their birth, their
residence, their death, their burial, or the possession of their
relics. The meaner passions of pride, avarice, and revenge, may
be deemed unworthy of a celestial breast; yet the saints
themselves condescended to testify their grateful approbation of
the liberality of their votaries; and the sharpest bolts of
punishment were hurled against those impious wretches, who
violated their magnificent shrines, or disbelieved their
supernatural power. 83 Atrocious, indeed, must have been the
guilt, and strange would have been the scepticism, of those men,
if they had obstinately resisted the proofs of a divine agency,
which the elements, the whole range of the animal creation, and
even the subtle and invisible operations of the human mind, were
compelled to obey. 84 The immediate, and almost instantaneous,
effects that were supposed to follow the prayer, or the offence,
satisfied the Christians of the ample measure of favor and
authority which the saints enjoyed in the presence of the Supreme
God; and it seemed almost superfluous to inquire whether they
were continually obliged to intercede before the throne of grace;
or whether they might not be permitted to exercise, according to
the dictates of their benevolence and justice, the delegated
powers of their subordinate ministry. The imagination, which had
been raised by a painful effort to the contemplation and worship
of the Universal Cause, eagerly embraced such inferior objects of
adoration as were more proportioned to its gross conceptions and
imperfect faculties. The sublime and simple theology of the
primitive Christians was gradually corrupted; and the Monarchy of
heaven, already clouded by metaphysical subtleties, was degraded
by the introduction of a popular mythology, which tended to
restore the reign of polytheism. 85

81 (return) [ Burnet (de Statu Mortuorum, p. 56-84) collects the
opinions of the Fathers, as far as they assert the sleep, or
repose, of human souls till the day of judgment. He afterwards
exposes (p. 91, &c.) the inconveniences which must arise, if they
possessed a more active and sensible existence.]

82 (return) [ Vigilantius placed the souls of the prophets and
martyrs, either in the bosom of Abraham, (in loco refrigerii,) or
else under the altar of God. Nec posse suis tumulis et ubi
voluerunt adesse praesentes. But Jerom (tom. ii. p. 122) sternly
refutes this blasphemy. Tu Deo leges pones? Tu apostolis vincula
injicies, ut usque ad diem judicii teneantur custodia, nec sint
cum Domino suo; de quibus scriptum est, Sequuntur Agnum quocunque
vadit. Si Agnus ubique, ergo, et hi, qui cum Agno sunt, ubique
esse credendi sunt. Et cum diabolus et daemones tote vagentur in
orbe, &c.]

83 (return) [ Fleury Discours sur l’Hist. Ecclesiastique, iii p.
80.]

84 (return) [ At Minorca, the relics of St. Stephen converted, in
eight days, 540 Jews; with the help, indeed, of some wholesome
severities, such as burning the synagogue, driving the obstinate
infidels to starve among the rocks, &c. See the original letter
of Severus, bishop of Minorca (ad calcem St. Augustin. de Civ.
Dei,) and the judicious remarks of Basnage, (tom. viii. p.
245-251.)]

85 (return) [ Mr. Hume (Essays, vol. ii. p. 434) observes, like a
philosopher, the natural flux and reflux of polytheism and
theism.]

IV. As the objects of religion were gradually reduced to the
standard of the imagination, the rites and ceremonies were
introduced that seemed most powerfully to affect the senses of
the vulgar. If, in the beginning of the fifth century, 86
Tertullian, or Lactantius, 87 had been suddenly raised from the
dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint, or martyr,
88 they would have gazed with astonishment, and indignation, on
the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and
spiritual worship of a Christian congregation. As soon as the
doors of the church were thrown open, they must have been
offended by the smoke of incense, the perfume of flowers, and the
glare of lamps and tapers, which diffused, at noonday, a gaudy,
superfluous, and, in their opinion, a sacrilegious light. If they
approached the balustrade of the altar, they made their way
through the prostrate crowd, consisting, for the most part, of
strangers and pilgrims, who resorted to the city on the vigil of
the feast; and who already felt the strong intoxication of
fanaticism, and, perhaps, of wine. Their devout kisses were
imprinted on the walls and pavement of the sacred edifice; and
their fervent prayers were directed, whatever might be the
language of their church, to the bones, the blood, or the ashes
of the saint, which were usually concealed, by a linen or silken
veil, from the eyes of the vulgar. The Christians frequented the
tombs of the martyrs, in the hope of obtaining, from their
powerful intercession, every sort of spiritual, but more
especially of temporal, blessings. They implored the preservation
of their health, or the cure of their infirmities; the
fruitfulness of their barren wives, or the safety and happiness
of their children. Whenever they undertook any distant or
dangerous journey, they requested, that the holy martyrs would be
their guides and protectors on the road; and if they returned
without having experienced any misfortune, they again hastened to
the tombs of the martyrs, to celebrate, with grateful
thanksgivings, their obligations to the memory and relics of
those heavenly patrons. The walls were hung round with symbols of
the favors which they had received; eyes, and hands, and feet, of
gold and silver: and edifying pictures, which could not long
escape the abuse of indiscreet or idolatrous devotion,
represented the image, the attributes, and the miracles of the
tutelar saint. The same uniform original spirit of superstition
might suggest, in the most distant ages and countries, the same
methods of deceiving the credulity, and of affecting the senses
of mankind: 89 but it must ingenuously be confessed, that the
ministers of the Catholic church imitated the profane model,
which they were impatient to destroy. The most respectable
bishops had persuaded themselves that the ignorant rustics would
more cheerfully renounce the superstitions of Paganism, if they
found some resemblance, some compensation, in the bosom of
Christianity. The religion of Constantine achieved, in less than
a century, the final conquest of the Roman empire: but the
victors themselves were insensibly subdued by the arts of their
vanquished rivals. 90 9011

86 (return) [ D’Aubigne (see his own Mémoires, p. 156-160)
frankly offered, with the consent of the Huguenot ministers, to
allow the first 400 years as the rule of faith. The Cardinal du
Perron haggled for forty years more, which were indiscreetly
given. Yet neither party would have found their account in this
foolish bargain.]

87 (return) [ The worship practised and inculcated by Tertullian,
Lactantius Arnobius, &c., is so extremely pure and spiritual,
that their declamations against the Pagan sometimes glance
against the Jewish, ceremonies.]

88 (return) [ Faustus the Manichaean accuses the Catholics of
idolatry. Vertitis idola in martyres.... quos votis similibus
colitis. M. de Beausobre, (Hist. Critique du Manicheisme, tom.
ii. p. 629-700,) a Protestant, but a philosopher, has
represented, with candor and learning, the introduction of
Christian idolatry in the fourth and fifth centuries.]

89 (return) [ The resemblance of superstition, which could not be
imitated, might be traced from Japan to Mexico. Warburton has
seized this idea, which he distorts, by rendering it too general
and absolute, (Divine Legation, vol. iv. p. 126, &c.)]

90 (return) [ The imitation of Paganism is the subject of Dr.
Middleton’s agreeable letter from Rome. Warburton’s
animadversions obliged him to connect (vol. iii. p. 120-132,) the
history of the two religions, and to prove the antiquity of the
Christian copy.]

9011 (return) [ But there was always this important difference
between Christian and heathen Polytheism. In Paganism this was
the whole religion; in the darkest ages of Christianity, some,
however obscure and vague, Christian notions of future
retribution, of the life after death, lurked at the bottom, and
operated, to a certain extent, on the thoughts and feelings,
sometimes on the actions.—M.]