e by no means so
uncommon, nor received with so much mistrust and caution by the ruling
authorities, as Gibbon would insinuate. --M.]

The expedient which was employed to elude the prudence of the laws,
affords a sufficient proof how effectually they disappointed the
mischievous designs of private malice or superstitious zeal. In a large
and tumultuous assembly, the restraints of fear and shame, so forcible
on the minds of individuals, are deprived of the greatest part of their
influence. The pious Christian, as he was desirous to obtain, or to
escape, the glory of martyrdom, expected, either with impatience or with
terror, the stated returns of the public games and festivals. On
those occasions the inhabitants of the great cities of the empire were
collected in the circus or the theatre, where every circumstance of the
place, as well as of the ceremony, contributed to kindle their devotion,
and to extinguish their humanity. Whilst the numerous spectators,
crowned with garlands, perfumed with incense, purified with the blood
of victims, and surrounded with the altars and statues of their tutelar
deities, resigned themselves to the enjoyment of pleasures, which
they considered as an essential part of their religious worship, they
recollected, that the Christians alone abhorred the gods of mankind,
and by their absence and melancholy on these solemn festivals, seemed
to insult or to lament the public felicity. If the empire had been
afflicted by any recent calamity, by a plague, a famine, or an
unsuccessful war; if the Tyber had, or if the Nile had not, risen beyond
its banks; if the earth had shaken, or if the temperate order of the
seasons had been interrupted, the superstitious Pagans were convinced
that the crimes and the impiety of the Christians, who were spared
by the excessive lenity of the government, had at length provoked the
divine justice. It was not among a licentious and exasperated populace,
that the forms of legal proceedings could be observed; it was not in an
amphitheatre, stained with the blood of wild beasts and gladiators, that
the voice of compassion could be heard. The impatient clamors of the
multitude denounced the Christians as the enemies of gods and men,
doomed them to the severest tortures, and venturing to accuse by name
some of the most distinguished of the new sectaries, required with
irresistible vehemence that they should be instantly apprehended and
cast to the lions. [61] The provincia