Sometimes also an individual of noble birth and station appears to have joined their number. It is highly probable, that Flavius Clemens, a consul, cousin of the emperor Domitian, and his wife, Domitilla, became converts to Christianity. As to the statement indeed of Dio Cassius, that they had fallen into such error, as to embrace τα ήθη των ̓Ιουδαίων, it may be understood alike of the Christian and the Jewish religion. The accusation however ins avtornios, which they are said to have incurred, inclines us to suppose, that the former was meant rather than the latter; since this charge was often alleged against the Christians but could not easily apply to the Jews.* Still it must certainly be allowed, that the Christians were, for the most part, from the lower walks of life, and but little acquainted with Grecian and Roman letters. For had it been otherwise, Caecilius, in the Octavius of Minucius Felix, could neither have said, with all the liberty of exaggeration, which may be claimed for him as an accuser, that they were collected from the lowest dregs, nor have addressed to them the language -behold; both the greater and better part of you, as you yourselves say, are in want, suffer cold, contempt and hunger.† And in like manner Celsus could have had no pretence for saying, that those who displayed such zeal to proselyte children and ignorant women, ἐριουργους εἶναι, και σκυτοτόμους, και κναφεῖς, ἀπαιδευτους και άγροι κοτατους (that they were wooldressers, and leather-cutters and fullers, uneducated and rustic men). But if there was room even in the age of the Antonines for the application of such language to the Christians, as Caecilius and Celsus used in reference to them, it is to be still less expected, that their earlier annals were adorned with the names either of the learned or the noble. We may imagine some resemblance in this respect between the primitive churches and the modern societies of the Mennonites and Quakers. These latter consisted chiefly of mechanics, artists, and merchants, men of principle and respectability indeed, possessed also of some information and property, yet in few instances eminent either for learning or birth or opulence. The first churches, it should be remembered, were small and made up of those, who not only lived in the shades of private life, but, from their

Dio Cassius L. LXVII. c. 14. p. 1112. ed. Hamb.

tc. 8. and c. 12.

See Origines contra Celsum, L. III. p. 144. ed. Spenc.

constant fear of danger, had every motive to evade rather than court the public observation. (On this account they are called by Caecilius a light-fleeing, skulking, speechless tribe.)* They were established too, not in towns and villages where all things of a private nature become public, but in large and populous cities, where the eyes of men notice only that, which is, as it were, thrust upon their attention. It is easy to conceive, that the Christians, under such circumstances, may have been utterly unknown to multitudes of their contemporaries. We have no doubt that there are many in London at this day, who know nothing in regard to the Quakers or the Baptists; and we have ascertained it for a fact, that very many of our own citizens are ignorant, that there is a small community at Leipsic, who worship in the manner of the Bohemian brethren. In the same way we suppose that great numbers of the Antiochians, Alexandrians, Romans, Athenians, Thessalonians, had at that time either no knowledge of the Christians, or only such as acquainted them with their name as Galilaeans, and their Jewish origin. Those things, which neither dazzle the eyes of men by their splendor, nor awaken in their minds admiration or abhorrence, nor allure them by the hope of gain and the prospect of pleasure, often remain concealed for a long time from the general view.

But in the age of the Antonines the Christians were no longer unknown. They ceased, from the time of Trajan, to be confounded with the Jews, and occupied henceforth a separate and conspicuous station in the eyes of the world. All those, who were accustomed to pay any attention to public affairs, could not but know, that the churches differed entirely from the synagogues, that the Christians observed rites of religion. peculiar to themselves, that they abhorred the gods, worshipped by the heathen, that they were bound to each other by stronger ties, than were those of other sects, that they had been repeatedly punished by the magistrates, and treated with indignity and violence by the multitude in revenge for the contempt, which they saw cast upon the objects of their worship. At the same time, most of those, who were aware of these and similar facts respecting the Christians, imagined that they saw nothing in them very remarkable; and, under this belief, they of course had no sufficient motive either for investigating their

See Minucii Felicis Octavius, c. 8.

history or transmitting any information on the subject. So far certainly as regards the novelty of the christian religion, it is not strange, that it did not arrest and fix the attention of men. At this very period, in all the large and populous cities, particularly at Rome and Alexandria, not only foreign rites of worship, brought from all parts of the earth, like those in honor of Isis and Mithra, were from time to time making their appearance, but frequently new ceremonies (xaivai rɛherα) like those of the Alexander, whom Lucian assailed under the name of Pseudomantis, were instituted. Nor did it appear wonderful, that the Christians worshipped the Deity without temples, altars and images. For the Jews, dispersed throughout the Roman world, had been accustomed everywhere to offer their devotions in a similar manner. But little importance again was attached to the invectives, with which the Christians denounced the gods of the heathen. In this they were not singular: for many of the philosophers also despised and ridiculed the gods. Nor was it deemed a matter, which deserved to interest specially the public mind, that the Christians suffered at one time from civil persecution, and at another from the violence of the multitude. The State was thrown into no very serious commotion either by the tumults of the people, demanding the sacrifice of their victims, or by the decisions of the judges, dooming them to death. Those too, who perished in this way, were obscure men, whose fate was not deemed of sufficient consequence to merit a place in history.

Add to this, that many of the Greeks and Romans held the Christians in contempt as the observers of Jewish rites, and also detested them, both on account of the crimes, which were laid to their charge, and the insubordinate, restless spirit, which was supposed to animate them. It is well known, that the Greeks and Romans regarded the Jews as a barbarous, superstitious, and illiterate people, and for this reason felt no interest in their concerns. In this way many were led to look upon the Christians also in the same light; who, as they derived their religion from the Jews, worshipped Jesus Christ, who was born among the Jews, acknowledged the prophets of the Jews as the messengers of God, and regulated their churches after the pattern of the synagogue, were supposed to practise Jewish rites and imitate the manners of the Jews. To contempt were frequently added hatred and indignation. Those, who cherished such feelings towards them, did in fact but their duty, if they considered VOL. XI. No. 29.

29

them really guilty of celebrating feasts, at which they committed murder and incest. That the suspicion of such guilt was deeply fixed in the minds of many, may be learned from the efforts of the Apologists, who left no stone unturned in their anxiety to clear themselves from these accusations, (Ovεoria δειπνα and Οι διποδειοι μίξεις, as they are called by the Greeks). But those, who placed no confidence in uncertain rumor, or who knew, that these imputations were false, were still displeased, that men so obscure and illiterate should affect to be wise above their condition, and refuse to conform to what the laws prescribed. This was natural. For it is common for men in the higher walks of life to censure those things, which are contrary to the established laws and usages, although, while they deny the right to others, they themselves assert the liberty of disregarding and renouncing them, as they please. Hence many, who discovered but little zeal themselves in the worship of the gods, condemned the Christians for their contempt of the public services of religion, and pronounced it mere obstinacy, that they refused to burn incense to the gods, and swear by the divinity of the emperor.

Such we consider to be the explanation of the fact that most of the Greek and Roman writers, even in the age of the Antonines, were either entirely silent in respect to the Christians, or confined their notice of them to brief and cursory allusions. They appeared to observe nothing in them, which was particularly worthy either of their own attention, or the information of posterity; and, as they either despised them, as a branch of the Jews, or hated them for the infamous crimes, of which they were suspected, and for their seditious spirit, it was impossible, that they should have been otherwise than hostile to their cause.

But all the Greeks and Romans, who were distinguished for their attention to letters, did not entertain such an opinion of the Christians, or rest satisfied with so superficial a knowledge of their affairs. The Apologies, written by Justin, Melito, Athenagoras, and others, were composed with too much ability and dispersed by the Christians with too much zeal, to allow us to suppose, that they were but little read. Those, therefore, who had seen these defences, or had met with the Christians in the intercourse of life, could not have failed to know, that they were not only guiltless of the crimes, with which they were charged, but taught doctrines and rules of conduct, which accorded with the sentiments of the most celebrated philosophers.

It may perhaps be further inquired then, why the Christians found no eulogists among the philosophers, who were superior to the multitude in wisdom, and entertained more correct views upon religious subjects.

The fact now here is, that many of those, who rejected indeed the public religion as mere superstition, but still adhered to its forms as an expression of their reverence for the Deity, and as an aid to the development of their moral nature, became not merely eulogists of the Christians, but in very deed Christians themselves. Of this number were Quadratus, Aristides, Melito, Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Minucius Felix, and many others, who, natives either of Syria, or Greece, or Egypt, or Africa, adopted the christian faith, transferred to the church their various accomplishments in Grecian and Roman science, and, especially in the age of the Antonines, advocated the cause of the Christians. All these men, averse indeed to the public belief, yet possessing minds ever wakeful on religious subjects, joined the christian church, because it presented to them views of truth, to which their hearts responded, because it spread before them a sacred history, which bore, as it were, the marks of a witness and messenger of the Deity, and prescribed to its members, united in the bonds of a common faith and mutual love, the duties, which are best suited to the cultivation of a pious spirit. No inconsiderable number, therefore, who had been enabled by the aid of Grecian philosophy to rise to more worthy conceptions of religion than those of the multitude, cordially approved and embraced the doctrines of Christianity. But those philosophers, who became Christians, are to be classed, not among the Greeks and Romans, who are the subjects of our present inquiry, but among the Christian writers, whom it would be out of place here to notice.

Others however of this class, and those by far the majority, took a different view; they condemned the Christian rites and withheld from them every expression of their sympathy and favor. Some of them did this from their regard to the authority of law and custom which weighed with them far more than the acknowledged defects of the public religion; and others again, from the contempt, in which they held every thing sacred.

Of this number were the Stoics and Platonists, who preceded the Neo-Platonists so called zar' onv. The Platonists of these times, as Plutarch, Alcinous, Apuleius, and the Stoics, as Arrian and Marcus Antoninus, having derived from philosophy