fiction; while all the
great and good of Greece and Rome, philosophers, moralists, historians,
and poets, are to be found on the side of Hellenism. If we cast from us
that which we have experienced to be good, by what rule and on what
principle can we afterward put our trust in anything else? And it is
considerable, that which has ever been asserted of this people, and
which I doubt not is true, that they have ever been prying about with
their doctrines and their mysteries among the poor and humbler sort,
among women, slaves, simple and unlearned folks, while they have never
appealed to, nor made any converts of, the great and the learned, who
alone are capable of judging of the truth of such things.

'Who are the believers here in Rome? Who knows them? Are the sacred
Senate Christians? or any distinguished for their rank? No; with
exceptions, too few to be noticed, those who embrace it are among the
dregs of the people, men wholly incapable of separating true from false,
and laying properly the safe foundations of a new religion--a work too
great even for philosophers. And not only does this religion draw to
itself the poor and humble and ignorant, but the base and wicked also;
persons known, while of our way, to have been notorious for their vices,
have all of a sudden joined themselves to the Christians; and whatever
show of sanctity may then have been assumed, we may well suppose there
has not been much of the reality. Long may it boast of such members, and
while its brief life lasts make continually such converts from us. As to
the amazing pretences they make of their benevolence in the care of the
poor, and even of our poor, doing more offices of kindness toward
them--so it is affirmed--than we ourselves--who does not see the motive
that prompts so much charity, in the good opinion they build up for
themselves in those whom they have so much obliged, and who cannot in
decency do less afterward than oblige them in turn, by joining their
superstitions--superstitions of which they know nothing before they
adopt them, and as little afterward.

'But I will not, O Emperor, weary out your patience again--already so
long tried--and will only say, that the fate which has all along and
everywhere befallen these people, might well warn them that they are
objects of the anger rather than the favor and love of the Lord of
Heaven, of which they so confidently make their boast. For if he loved
them would he leave them everywhe