rom the public burial-place. After ten
centuries of a very free and open trade, some suspicions have arisen
among the more learned Catholics. They now require as a proof of
sanctity and martyrdom, the letters B.M., a vial full of red liquor
supposed to be blood, or the figure of a palm-tree. But the two former
signs are of little weight, and with regard to the last, it is observed
by the critics, 1. That the figure, as it is called, of a palm, is
perhaps a cypress, and perhaps only a stop, the flourish of a comma
used in the monumental inscriptions. 2. That the palm was the symbol of
victory among the Pagans. 3. That among the Christians it served as the
emblem, not only of martyrdom, but in general of a joyful resurrection.
See the epistle of P. Mabillon, on the worship of unknown saints, and
Muratori sopra le Antichita Italiane, Dissertat. lviii.]

[Footnote 74: As a specimen of these legends, we may be satisfied with
10,000 Christian soldiers crucified in one day, either by Trajan or
Hadrian on Mount Ararat. See Baronius ad Martyrologium Romanum;
Tille mont, Mem. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. part ii. p. 438; and Geddes's
Miscellanies, vol. ii. p. 203. The abbreviation of Mil., which may
signify either soldiers or thousands, is said to have occasioned some
extraordinary mistakes.]

[Footnote 75: Dionysius ap. Euseb l. vi. c. 41 One of the seventeen
was likewise accused of robbery. * Note: Gibbon ought to have said,
was falsely accused of robbery, for so it is in the Greek text. This
Christian, named Nemesion, falsely accused of robbery before the
centurion, was acquitted of a crime altogether foreign to his character,
but he was led before the governor as guilty of being a Christian, and
the governor inflicted upon him a double torture. (Euseb. loc. cit.) It
must be added, that Saint Dionysius only makes particular mention of
the principal martyrs, [this is very doubtful.--M.] and that he says,
in general, that the fury of the Pagans against the Christians gave
to Alexandria the appearance of a city taken by storm. [This refers to
plunder and ill usage, not to actual slaughter.--M.] Finally it should
be observed that Origen wrote before the persecution of the emperor
Decius.--G.]

During the same period of persecution, the zealous, the eloquent, the
ambitious Cyprian governed the church, not only of Carthage, but even of
Africa. He possessed every quality which could engage the reverence
of the faithful, or provoke the sus