The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Эдвард Гиббон

pagan ceremonials, by sacrifice and sprinkling incense on the altars of the gods. Many Christians purchased libelli from the magistrates certifying that they were free from the imputation of Christianity, and were hence called libellatici. The chief sources are Cyprian’s Letters and his De Lapsis; fragments of Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, who hid himself during the persecution, in Eusebius, H. E., vi. 40-42; and the Vita of Gregory Thaumaturgus by Gregory of Nyssa.]

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      Euseb. l. vi. c. 39. Cyprian. Epistol. 55. The see of Rome remained vacant from the martyrdom of Fabianus, the 20th of January, ad 250, till the election of Cornelius, the 4th of June, ad 251. Decius had probably left Rome, since he was killed before the end of that year.

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      Euseb. l. vii. c. 10. Mosheim (p. 548) has very clearly shown that the Prefect Macrianus and the Egyptian Magus are one and the same person.

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      Eusebius (l. vii. c. 13) gives us a Greek version of this Latin edict, which seems to have been very concise. By another edict he directed that the Cæmeteria should be restored to the Christians.

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      Euseb. l. vii. c. 30. Lactantius de M. P. c. 6. Hieronym. in Chron. p. 177 [ad ann. 2290]. Orosius, l. vii. c. 23. Their language is in general so ambiguous and incorrect that we are at a loss to determine how far Aurelian had carried his intentions before he was assassinated. [He intended to rescind the edict of Gallienus.] Most of the moderns (except Dodwell, Dissertat. Cyprian. xi. 64) have seized the occasion of gaining a few extraordinary martyrs.

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      Paul was better pleased with the title of Ducenarius, than with that of bishop. The Ducenarius was an Imperial procurator, so called from his salary of two hundred Sestertia, or 1600l. a year. (See Salmasius ad Hist. August. p. 124.) Some critics suppose that the bishop of Antioch had actually obtained such an office from Zenobia, while others consider it only as a figurative expression of his pomp and insolence.

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      Simony was not unknown in those times; and the clergy sometimes bought what they intended to sell. It appears that the bishopric of Carthage was purchased by a wealthy matron, named Lucilla, for her servant Majorinus. The price was 400 Folles. (Monument. Antiq. ad calcem Optati, p. 263.) Every Follis contained 125 pieces of silver, and the whole sum may be computed at about 2400l.

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      If we are desirous of extenuating the vices of Paul, we must suspect the assembled bishops of the East of publishing the most malicious calumnies in circular epistles addressed to all the churches of the empire (ap. Euseb. l. vii. c. 30).

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      His heresy (like those of Noetus and Sabellius, in the same century) tended to confound the mysterious distinction of the divine persons. See Mosheim, p. 702, &c.

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      Euseb. Hist. Ecclesiast. l. vii. c. 30. We are entirely indebted to him for the curious story of Paul of Samosata.

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      The era of Martyrs, which is still in use among the Copts and the Abyssinians, must be reckoned from the 29th of August, ad 284; as the beginning of the Egyptian year was nineteen days earlier than the real accession of Diocletian. See Dissertation Préliminaire à l’Art de vérifier les Dates.

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      The expression of Lactantius (de M. P. c. 15), “sacrificio pollui coegit,” implies their antecedent conversion to the faith; but does not seem to justify the assertion of Mosheim (p. 912) that they had been privately baptized.

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      M. de Tillemont (Mémoires Ecclésiastiques, tom. v. part i. p. 11, 12) has quoted, from the Spicilegium of Dom. Luc d’Acheri [iii. 297], a very curious instruction which Bishop Theonas composed for the use of Lucian.

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      Lactantius de M. P. c. 10.

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      Eusebius, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. viii. c. i. The reader who consults the original will not accuse me of heightening the picture. Eusebius was about sixteen years of age at the accession of the emperor Diocletian.

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      We might quote, among a great number of instances, the mysterious worship of Mithras, and the Taurobolia; the latter of which became fashionable in the time of the Antonines (see a Dissertation of M. de Boze, in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, tom. ii. p. 443). The romance of Apuleius is as full of devotion as of satire.

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      The impostor Alexander very strongly recommended the oracle of Trophonius at Mallos, and those of Apollo at Claros and Miletus (Lucian, tom. ii. p. 236, edit. Reitz). The last of these, whose singular history would furnish a very curious episode, was consulted by Diocletian before he published his edicts of persecution (Lactantius, de M. P. c. 11).

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      Besides the ancient stories of Pythagoras and Aristeas, the cures performed at the shrine of Æsculapius and the fables related of Apollonius of Tyana were frequently opposed to the miracles of Christ; though I agree with Dr. Lardner (see Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 253, 352) that, when Philostratus composed the life of Apollonius, he had no such intention.

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      It is seriously to be lamented that the Christian fathers, by acknowledging the supernatural or, as they deem it, the infernal part of Paganism, destroy with their own hands the great advantage which we might otherwise derive from the liberal concessions of our adversaries.

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      Julian (p. 301, edit. Spanheim) expresses a pious joy that the providence of the gods had extinguished the impious sects, and for the most part destroyed the books of the Pyrrhonians and Epicureans, which had been very numerous, since Epicurus himself composed no less than 300 volumes. See Diogenes Laertius, l. x. c. 26.

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      Cumque alios audiam mussitare indignanter, et dicere oportere statui per Senatum, aboleantur ut hæc scripta, quibus Christiana Religio comprobetur et vetustatis opprimatur auctoritas. Arnobius adversus Gentes, l. iii. p. 103, 104. He adds very properly, Erroris convincite Ciceronem . . . nam intercipere scripta, et publicatam velle submergere lectionem, non est Deum [Deos] defendere sed veritatis testificationem timere.

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      Lactantius (Divin. Institut. l. v. c. 2, 3) gives a very clear and spirited account of two of these philosophic adversaries of the faith. The large treatise of Porphyry against the Christians consisted of thirty books, and was composed in Sicily about the year 270.

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      See Socrates, Hist. Ecclesiast. l. i. c. 9, and Codex Justinian. l. i. tit. l. i. 3.

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      Eusebius, l. viii. c. 4. c. 17. He limits the number of military martyrs, by a remarkable expression (σπανίως τούτων ε[Editor: illegible character]ς που καὶ δεύτερος), of which neither his Latin nor French translations have rendered the energy. Notwithstanding the authority of Eusebius, and the silence of Lactantius, Ambrose, Sulpicius, Orosius, &c., it has been long believed that the Thebæan legion, consisting of 6000 Christians, suffered martyrdom, by the order of Maximian, in the valley of the Pennine Alps. The story was first published about the middle of the fifth century by Eucherius, bishop of Lyons, who received it from certain persons, who received it from Isaac, bishop of Geneva, who is said to have received it from Theodore, bishop of Octodurum. The abbey of St. Maurice still subsists, a rich monument of the credulity of Sigismund, king of Burgundy. See an excellent Dissertation in the