s not yet infected by Pagan ideas and practices, she
became still more exposed to them after the abovementioned corruptions,
and when, as has already been said, p. 20, the Christian society was
invaded by whole populations, who, notwithstanding their abjuration of
heathenism, were Pagans in their manners, their tastes, their prejudices,
and their ignorance. There were, moreover, very great difficulties in
obtaining authentic information about the lives of the martyrs. I have
said, p. 3, that their memory was usually preserved in the churches to
which they had belonged. This was, however, entirely a local affair, and
though the report of such events had undoubtedly circulated amongst other
Christian congregations, there was no general register of martyrs
preserved by the whole church, which had no central point of union. The
means of communication between various places were, moreover, at that time
very imperfect, and this difficulty was increased by the persecutions to
which the primitive churches were often exposed. These persecutions
dispersed many churches, destroying their registers and other documents
belonging to them, whilst even a much greater number of them experienced a
similar calamity from the barbarian nations who successively invaded the
Roman empire. The accounts of the sufferings and death of the martyrs
rest, therefore, with the exception of some comparatively few
well-authenticated cases, upon the authority of vague and uncertain
traditions. These traditions were generally collected and put in writing
only centuries after the time when the event to which they relate had, or
is supposed to have taken place. It was therefore no wonder that the
subjects of many such accounts are purely imaginary. The nature of the
generality of these legends, or lives of martyrs and other saints, may be
judged of best from the following opinion expressed on this subject by a
Roman Catholic clergyman of unsuspected orthodoxy:--

"What shall I say of those saints of whose life we don't know either the
beginning or the progress,--of those saints to whom so many praises are
given, though nobody knows anything about their end? Who may pray to them
to intercede for him, when it is impossible to know what degree of credit
they enjoy with God? We shall be obliged, indeed, to consider the most
part of the acts of martyrs, which are now produced with so much
confidence, as so many fables, and reject them as nothing better than
roman