Evidence of Christianity | Page 8

what the Christians did, and what the philosophers did
not; and in these consisted the activity and danger of the enterprise.
_________
* The best of the ancient philosophers, Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus,
allowed, or rather enjoined, men to worship the gods of the country,
and in the established form. See passages to this purpose collected from
their works by Dr. Clarke, Nat. and Rev. Rel. p. 180. ed. v--Except
Socrates, they all thought it wiser to comply with the laws than to
contend. _________
Thirdly, it ought also to be considered, that this danger proceeded not
merely from solemn acts and public resolutions of the state, but from
sudden bursts of violence at particular places, from the licence of the
populace, the rashness of some magistrates and negligence of others;
from the influence and instigation of interested adversaries, and, in
general, from the variety and warmth of opinion which an errand so
novel and extraordinary could not fail of exciting. I can conceive that
the teachers of Christianity might both fear and suffer much from these
causes, without any general persecution being denounced against them
by imperial authority. Some length of time, I should suppose, might
pass, before the vast machine of the Roman empire would be put in
motion, or its attention be obtained to religious controversy: but, during
that time, a great deal of ill usage might be endured, by a set of
friendless, unprotected travellers, telling men, wherever they came, that
the religion of their ancestors, the religion in which they had been

brought up, the religion of the state, and of the magistrate, the rites
which they frequented, the pomp which they admired, was throughout a
system of folly and delusion.
Nor do I think that the teachers of Christianity would find protection in
that general disbelief of the popular theology, which is supposed to
have prevailed amongst the intelligent part of the heathen public. It is
by no means true that unbelievers are usually tolerant. They are not
disposed (and why should they?) to endanger the present state of things,
by suffering a religion of which they believe nothing to be disturbed by
another of which they believe as little. They are ready themselves to
conform to anything; and are, oftentimes, amongst the foremost to
procure conformity from others, by any method which they think likely
to be efficacious. When was ever a change of religion patronized by
infidels? How little, not withstanding the reigning scepticism, and the
magnified liberality of that age, the true principles of toleration were
understood by the wisest men amongst them, may be gathered from
two eminent and uncontested examples. The younger Pliny, polished as
he was by all the literature of that soft and elegant period, could gravely
pronounce this monstrous judgment:--"Those who persisted in
declaring themselves Christians, I ordered to be led away to
punishment, (i. e. to execution,) for I DID NOT DOUBT, whatever it
was that they confessed, that contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought
to be punished." His master Trajan, a mild and accomplished prince,
went, nevertheless, no further in his sentiments of moderation and
equity than what appears in the following rescript:--"The Christians are
not to be sought for; but if any are brought before you, and convicted,
they are to be punished." And this direction he gives, after it had been
reported to him by his own president, that, by the most strict
examination, nothing could be discovered in the principles of these
persons, but "a bad and excessive superstition," accompanied, it seems,
with an oath or mutual federation, "to allow themselves in no crime or
immoral conduct whatever." The truth is, the ancient heathens
considered religion entirely as an affair of state, as much under the
tuition of the magistrate as any other part of the police. The religion of
that age was not merely allied to the state; it was incorporated into it.
Many of its offices were administered by the magistrate. Its titles of

pontiffs, augurs, and flamens, were borne by senators, consuls, and
generals. Without discussing, therefore, the truth of the theology, they
resented every affront put upon the established worship, as a direct
opposition to the authority of government.
Add to which, that the religious systems of those times, however ill
supported by evidence, had been long established. The ancient religion
of a country has always many votaries, and sometimes not the fewer,
because its origin is hidden in remoteness and obscurity. Men have a
natural veneration for antiquity, especially in matters of religion. What
Tacitus says of the Jewish was more applicable to the heathen
establishment: "Hi ritus, quoquo modo inducti, antiquitate
defenduntur." It was also a splendid and sumptuous worship. It had its
priesthood, its endowments, its temples. Statuary, painting, architecture,
and music, contributed their effect to its