find this passage: Doleo enim quando audio quosdam
improbe et insolenter discurrere, et ad ineptian vel ad discordias
vacare, Christi membra et jam Christum confessa per concubitus illicitos
inquinari, nec a diaconis aut presbyteris regi posse, sed id agere ut
per paucorum pravos et malos mores, multorum et bonorum confessorum
gloria honesta maculetur. Gibbon's misrepresentation lies in the
ambiguous expression "too often." Were the epistles arranged in a
different manner in the edition consulted by M. Guizot?--M.]

The sober discretion of the present age will more readily censure than
admire, but can more easily admire than imitate, the fervor of the
first Christians, who, according to the lively expressions of
Sulpicius Severus, desired martyrdom with more eagerness than his own
contemporaries solicited a bishopric. [92] The epistles which Ignatius
composed as he was carried in chains through the cities of Asia, breathe
sentiments the most repugnant to the ordinary feelings of human nature.
He earnestly beseeches the Romans, that when he should be exposed in
the amphitheatre, they would not, by their kind but unseasonable
intercession, deprive him of the crown of glory; and he declares his
resolution to provoke and irritate the wild beasts which might be
employed as the instruments of his death. [93] Some stories are related
of the courage of martyrs, who actually performed what Ignatius had
intended; who exasperated the fury of the lions, pressed the executioner
to hasten his office, cheerfully leaped into the fires which were
kindled to consume them, and discovered a sensation of joy and pleasure
in the midst of the most exquisite tortures. Several examples have been
preserved of a zeal impatient of those restraints which the emperors
had provided for the security of the church. The Christians sometimes
supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely
disturbed the public service of paganism, [94] and rushing in crowds
round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce and
to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of the Christians was
too remarkable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers;
but they seem to have considered it with much less admiration than
astonishment. Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes
transported the fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or
reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of