ors who, contrary to every principle
of judicial proceeding, admitted the use of torture, in order to obtain,
not a confession, but a denial, of the crime which was the object of
their inquiry. [64] The monks of succeeding ages, who, in their peaceful
solitudes, entertained themselves with diversifying the deaths and
sufferings of the primitive martyrs, have frequently invented torments
of a much more refined and ingenious nature. In particular, it has
pleased them to suppose, that the zeal of the Roman magistrates,
disdaining every consideration of moral virtue or public decency,
endeavored to seduce those whom they were unable to vanquish, and that
by their orders the most brutal violence was offered to those whom they
found it impossible to seduce. It is related, that females, who were
prepared to despise death, were sometimes condemned to a more severe
trial, [64a] and called upon to determine whether they set a higher
value on their religion or on their chastity. The youths to whose
licentious embraces they were abandoned, received a solemn exhortation
from the judge, to exert their most strenuous efforts to maintain the
honor of Venus against the impious virgin who refused to burn incense on
her altars. Their violence, however, was commonly disappointed, and the
seasonable interposition of some miraculous power preserved the chaste
spouses of Christ from the dishonor even of an involuntary defeat. We
should not indeed neglect to remark, that the more ancient as well
as authentic memorials of the church are seldom polluted with these
extravagant and indecent fictions. [65]

[Footnote 63: See the rescript of Trajan, and the conduct of Pliny. The
most authentic acts of the martyrs abound in these exhortations. Note:
Pliny's test was the worship of the gods, offerings to the statue of the
emperor, and blaspheming Christ--praeterea maledicerent Christo.--M.]

[Footnote 64: In particular, see Tertullian, (Apolog. c. 2, 3,) and
Lactantius, (Institut. Divin. v. 9.) Their reasonings are almost the
same; but we may discover, that one of these apologists had been a
lawyer, and the other a rhetorician.]

[Footnote 64a: The more ancient as well as authentic memorials of the
church, relate many examples of the fact, (of these severe trials,)
which there is nothing to contradict. Tertullian, among others, says,
Nam proxime ad lenonem damnando Christianam, potius quam ad leonem,
confessi estis labem pudicitiae apud nos atrocior