having
searched it out by the revelation of Polycarp, who directed me to it,"
&c. The story of Polycarp's martyrdom is embellished with miraculous
circumstances which some modern writers on ecclesiastical history take
the liberty of omitting.[A]

[A] Conyers Middleton, An Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers,
&c. p. 126. Middleton says that Eusebius omitted to mention the
dove, which flew out of Polycarp's body, and Dodwell and
Archbishop Wake have done the same. Wake says, "I am so little
a friend to such miracles that I thought it better with
Eusebius to omit that circumstance than to mention it from Bp.
Usher's Manuscript," which manuscript however, says Middleton,
he afterwards declares to be so well attested that we need not
any further assurance of the truth of it.

In order to form a proper notion of the condition of the Christians
under M. Antoninus we must go back to Trajan's time. When the younger
Pliny was governor of Bithynia, the Christians were numerous in those
parts, and the worshipers of the old religion were falling off. The
temples were deserted, the festivals neglected, and there were no
purchasers of victims for sacrifice. Those who were interested in the
maintenance of the old religion thus found that their profits were in
danger. Christians of both sexes and all ages were brought before the
governor who did not know what to do with them. He could come to no
other conclusion than this, that those who confessed to be Christians
and persevered in their religion ought to be punished; if for nothing
else, for their invincible obstinancy. He found no crimes proved against
the Christians, and he could only characterize their religion as a
depraved and extravagant superstition, which might be stopped if the
people were allowed the opportunity of recanting. Pliny wrote this in a
letter to Trajan (Plinius, Ep. x. 97). He asked for the emperor's
directions, because he did not know what to do. He remarks that he had
never been engaged in judicial inquiries about the Christians, and that
accordingly he did not know what to inquire about, or how far to inquire
and punish. This proves that it was not a new thing to examine into a
man's profession of Christianity and to punish him for it.[A]

[A] Orosius (vii. 12) speaks of Trajan's persecution of the
Christians, and of Pliny's application to him having led the
emperor to mitigate his severity. The punishment by th