atment of penitent apostates, does not occur among the Christians of
the preceding century. Shall we ascribe this to the superiority of their
faith and courage, or to our less intimate knowledge of their history!]

[Footnote 103a: Pliny says, that the greater part of the Christians
persisted in avowing themselves to be so; the reason for his consulting
Trajan was the periclitantium numerus. Eusebius (l. vi. c. 41) does not
permit us to doubt that the number of those who renounced their faith
was infinitely below the number of those who boldly confessed it. The
prefect, he says and his assessors present at the council, were alarmed
at seeing the crowd of Christians; the judges themselves trembled.
Lastly, St. Cyprian informs us, that the greater part of those who had
appeared weak brethren in the persecution of Decius, signalized
their courage in that of Gallius. Steterunt fortes, et ipso dolore
poenitentiae facti ad praelium fortiores Epist. lx. p. 142.--G.]

IV. Notwithstanding the general rules established for the conviction
and punishment of the Christians, the fate of those sectaries, in an
extensive and arbitrary government, must still in a great measure, have
depended on their own behavior, the circumstances of the times, and
the temper of their supreme as well as subordinate rulers. Zeal might
sometimes provoke, and prudence might sometimes avert or assuage, the
superstitious fury of the Pagans. A variety of motives might dispose the
provincial governors either to enforce or to relax the execution of the
laws; and of these motives the most forcible was their regard not only
for the public edicts, but for the secret intentions of the emperor,
a glance from whose eye was sufficient to kindle or to extinguish
the flames of persecution. As often as any occasional severities were
exercised in the different parts of the empire, the primitive Christians
lamented and perhaps magnified their own sufferings; but the celebrated
number of ten persecutions has been determined by the ecclesiastical
writers of the fifth century, who possessed a more distinct view of the
prosperous or adverse fortunes of the church, from the age of Nero to
that of Diocletian. The ingenious parallels of the ten plagues of Egypt,
and of the ten horns of the Apocalypse, first suggested this calculation
to their minds; and in their application of the faith of prophecy to the
truth of history, they were careful to select those reigns which
were indee