The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church. IV.
The pure and austere morals of the Christians.

V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually
formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman
empire.

[Footnote!: Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the
inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet as to the principle
from which it was derived, we are, toto coelo, divided in opinion. You
deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more adequate
and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth of
Christianity. Watson. Letters Gibbon, i. 9.--M.]

I. We have already described the religious harmony of the ancient world,
and the facility [104] with which the most different and even hostile
nations embraced, or at least respected, each other's superstitions. A
single people refused to join in the common intercourse of mankind. The
Jews, who, under the Assyrian and Persian monarchies, had languished
for many ages the most despised portion of their slaves, [1] emerged from
obscurity under the successors of Alexander; and as they multiplied to
a surprising degree in the East, and afterwards in the West, they
soon excited the curiosity and wonder of other nations. [2] The sullen
obstinacy with which they maintained their peculiar rites and unsocial
manners, seemed to mark them out as a distinct species of men, who
boldly professed, or who faintly disguised, their implacable habits to
the rest of human kind. [3] Neither the violence of Antiochus, nor the
arts of Herod, nor the example of the circumjacent nations, could
ever persuade the Jews to associate with the institutions of Moses the
elegant mythology of the Greeks. [4] According to the maxims of universal
toleration, the Romans protected a superstition which they despised. [5]
The polite Augustus condescended to give orders, that sacrifices should
be offered for his prosperity in the temple of Jerusalem; [6] whilst
the meanest of the posterity of Abraham, who should have paid the same
homage to the Jupiter of the Capitol, would have been an object of
abhorrence to himself and to his brethren.

But the moderation of the conquerors was insufficient to appease the
jealous prejudices of their subjects, who were alarmed and scandalized
at the ensigns of paganism, which necessarily introduced themselves into
a Roman province. [7] The mad attempt of Caligula to place his own statue
i