Crescens the Cynick Philosopher a Man proud and Ignorant and according to the humour of his Sect ill-natur'd and implacable and as Tatian who was very intimately acquainted with him and his manners describes him given up to all manner of Vice and Wickedness Now it hapned that Justin in publick Disputes had exposed the extream Childishness and Ignorance of this vain-glorious Pedant who to be revenged of him accuses him before the Prefect of the City who after he had in vain taken some pains to perswade him to renounce his Saviour and to Sacrifice to the Gods pronounced this Sentence against him and Six more They who refuse to do Sacrifice to the Gods and to obey the Imperial Edict let them be first Scourged and then Beheaded according to the Laws The Persecution at Lyons began at the Rabble as it is plainly described in the Epistle of that Church to the Churches of Asia and Phrygia In the first place say they they encountred with admirable courage and patience all the outrages and indignities of the promiscuous Rabble as Tumultuous Out-cries Scourgings Draggings Spoiling Stoning and Fettering and whatsoever else the Heady and Savage Multitude are wont to practise against their most hated Enemies And by them were they haled before the Governour 's Tribunal and by him deliver'd back to their fury which they Executed upon them with all the Arts and Circumstances of Fanatick Zeal and Barbarous Cruelty This I say was the usual Method to Sacrifice the Christians to the outrage of the Superstitious Rabble and if at any time any Prince engaged himself in the opposition of Christianity it was because that opposed the Pagan Religion But that was such an exorbitant contradiction to the common sense of Mankind and to all the first Principles of good and evil that it was impossible any Man could be in love with it after any fair and impartial enquiry about it So that what such Men acted against Christianity proceeded not from any rational and sober Counsel but meerly from vulgar custom and prejudice And therefore if M. Aurelius or any other Emperour that ought to have had more wit and temper than the Common People shewed any zeal against the Christian Religion their judgment is as little to be regarded in this case as that of the multitude because it is evident that they were acted meerly by superstitious zeal and folly If indeed they had opposed Christianity originally upon its own account the reasons of it might have deserved some consideration but when the ground of all their displeasure against it was founded upon their love of Paganism the meer absurdity of that cause is too great an exception against their understandings in this Controversie Thus supposing that M. Aurelius himself was as forward as the People in his zeal against Christianity it is evident that he was as wise too For whatever he was beside he was a great Superstitionist and to a degree of stupidity zealous for the Pagan Follies out of that vain affectation that had possest him to be accounted the second Numa of Rome which one conceit transported him to a more than childish zeal for the old Rites and Ceremonies of their Religion And this seems to have been the case of Decius and Dioclesian in setting on foot the eighth and tenth Persecutions to which they were hurried by a vehement and unlearned zeal for the Pagan Religion This in short is the truest account that I can find of all the Persecutions by which it plainly appears that Christianity was not so much opposed by its greatest Enemies for any thing they had to object against it self as because it so shamefully exposed the bruitishness of their Idolatry And yet as absurd as the Worship of the Heathen Gods was the giving Divine Worship to their Emperours was much worse For though their Gods were nothing better than dead Men yet having lived in Ages remote and almost unknown and thereby gain'd the advantageous reverence of Antiquity the common People were not aware of their Original but finding them in the possession of their Divinity they gave them the Worship due to that Title But to give Divine and Religious Worship to the Roman Emperours whose Deaths and whose Vices were so fresh in the memories of Men was such an unmanly piece of flattery as any Man that had any sense of Generosity ought not to submit to but every Man that had any sense of God or Religion ought to defie And yet so infinitely were those Men besotted with Pride and Insolence that they all had their Temples and Priests dedicated to their own Divinity excepting onely Tiberius who being a great dissembler himself chose to refuse so gross a flattery and would not so much as permit his Statue to be placed among the Images of the Gods but onely among the Ornaments of private Houses But as for all the rest they either took to themselves all the Titles and Dignities of Divinity or had them conferr'd on them by their Successours And when they were once advanced among the Gods all Men were required under pain of Death to pay them Divine honour Nay as Tertullian too truly upbraids them they were more religious toward their Emperours than their supreme Deity Majore formidine callidiore timiditate Caesarem observatis quà m ipsum de Olympo Jovem And all this though it were scarce a greater blasphemy against God than an affront to Mankind yet so base and degenerate were the spirits of Men at that time that they refused not to submit to so dishonourable a flattery Onely the Christians out of that serious regard they had to the honour of their Creatour unanimously scorn'd it with open and publick defiance And for their generous freedom herein they were as familiarly proceeded against as for the contempt of their Gods But now if this were another ground of the Heathens acting against the Christians it is so far from being any reasonable pretence that it is one of the greatest shames of humane Nature So that setting aside all that Evidence that is to be produced in behalf of Christianity the opposition made to it upon this or any of the foremention'd accounts cannot reflect the least shadow of disadvantage upon the truth or the goodness of its Cause § XLI These were the real Articles of accusation in their charges against the Christians but they were not so frivolous as their forged and counterfeit pretences were malicious For the Heathen Priests thought it not enough to enflame the rage of the People with fanatick Zeal unless they fed their Malice as all Impostors do with Lies and Calumnies But when Men are once reduced to this low and dirty Artifice in defence of any Cause it is a sign they are drawn down to the very dregs of Malice For it is onely for want of Argument that they are forced to make use of Slander which the natural ingenuity of Mankind would scorn if they could support themselves and their Party without
raised against Christianity but as for that private Opposition that it met with from Philosophers and pretendedly learned Men it was so very contemptible that it scarce deserves consideration For though one would expect to have found all the learned World engaged in a Controversie that concern'd the whole World yet they were very few that concern'd themselves against the Christian Cause and those that did so onely pelted at it with remote and far-fetcht cavils but never came up to the matter of Fact which is the onely pertinent subject in this Enquiry and if that stand firm all other Opposition falls short of the Argument and breaks its own force upon it self by endeavouring to disparage the truth of a thing that it cannot deny or to prove the same thing to be false that it cannot but confess to be true Nay so far were they from putting the matter of Fact to the question that they were all forced to take it for granted Porphyry and Celsus impute our Saviour's Miracles to Magick Hieroles and Trypho say onely that the Christians make too much of them by making a God of a divine Man Julian tells us that he did no such great matters but onely cure the Lame and the Blind So that it seems none of them were at that time hardy enough so much as to think of controuling the reality of our Saviour's Actions for fear of too much disadvantage in the Controversie Now after this it is easie to foretell with what trifling pretences they must satisfie themselves and they were so very trifling that it-will require but very little pains to shew their Vanity All the Opposition then that was made to it this way proceeded meerly either from gross Superstition or avowed Atheism The first is coincident with the former account of the publick Persecutions and was nothing else than a meer fanatick zeal for the old Pagan Idolatry And this was chiefly managed by the Pythagoreans the onely superstitious Sect among all the Philosophers who were all along so zealous of the Grecian Rites that they may properly be styled the Monks and Friers of that Religion This humour they derived from their first Founder Pythagoras himself who having learned that part of natural Philosophy from Thales and Anaximander that explain'd the mechanical contrivances of Matter and Motion to which alone those Philosophers pretended he quickly perceived either by the sagacity of his own Mind or the instruction of Pherecides that there was some intelligent Being in Nature that was the cause of the order and harmony of Things And it was this that so strongly possest him with the notion of a Deity whom he defined to be a Mind diffused through all Nature from whom all things receive their Life and Activity As not being able to understand how the natural effects that are constantly and every where visible in the World could be brought to pass but by the present and immediate assistance of such a power And now having his Mind thus throughly touched with a sense of the Divinity and finding the Orphean Rites and Constitutions at that time the most sacred Solemnities of Religion in the World he grew very zealous of them as the most religious Symbols of Divine Worship Neither was his zeal satisfied with the superstition of his own Country but he travel'd into all parts of the World to inform himself of their several ways of worshipping their Gods And then composed a Service of his own partly out of the Orphean partly out of the AEgyptian partly out of the Chaldean partly out of the Eleusinian and partly to mention no more out of the Samothracian Rites which together with his own theurgick Ceremonies must make up a compleat Rhapsodie of all the Superstition and Idolatry of the Heathen World And though some of his Followers Leucippus Democritus and Epicurus apostatised so far from his Institution as to fall into the rankest and most audacious Atheism yet all that persevered in their Master's Discipline were sure no doubt to be most of all strict in his Religion And it was onely this Sect of Philosophers who were Men rather devout than learned that all along gave authority and reputation to the old Heathen Idolatry And therefore when Christianity began to bear it away it could not be expected but that they should appear the most forward Champions to defend their Fanes and their Temples their Altars and their Oracles against the new and prevailing Religion The first and the ablest Champion was Porphyrie a Man at that time eminent for Wit and Learning but so entirely eaten up with fanatick zeal for his Religion that he had not patience so much as to hear of any thing that opposed it and this set him all on fire against Christianity For being by nature of a fierce and angry temper insomuch as he attempted to cut his own Throat as he describes himself in the Life of Plotinus and withall very much inclined to Austerity and Devotion for he was a very strict observer of the Pythagorean Rules this fixt him in his fanatick and superstitious zeal than which there is nothing more insuperable Though when this happens to be join'd with a natural eagerness of temper it grows into meer fury and outrage and so transports Men out of the use of their natural Understandings And this seems to have been the case of Porphyrie not onely from that description that he gives of himself and that account that his Friends give of his Life but also by that Character that is given of his Writings against the Christians which is described by the most impartial Writers as full of rage and bitterness Though how he performed what he undertook is not so certainly determinable in that not onely his own Book but all those that were written against it are utterly perisht But by those fragments that remain of it in the Writings of the Ancients it does not at all appear that he ever ventur'd to deny the matter of Fact of our Saviour's Miracles but granted them so far as to impute them to the power of Magick But how vain that pretence is we have already shewn at least the whole of the Controversie depends upon the truth of the matters of Fact that are recorded of our Saviour none of which I do not find that he ever undertook to controul and as long as that stands firm all other Opposition is but trifling However he was a Person so infinitely superstitious that his Opinion can be no prejudice against the cause of Christianity because he was at no liberty to make any enquiry into the truth of its pretences And of the same Kidney was Hierocles especially if he were of which there is little doubt the same zealous Person that was first Judge at Nicomedia and afterward Prefect of AEgypt under Dioclesian and a great Agent in his bloody Persecution however he was a zealous Orphean and extreamly addicted to the old Pythagorick Superstition But whatever he was otherwise his work
to give way to an upstart Sect but to renounce the Religion of their Ancestours confirm'd as well by their own Laws as ancient Custom and submit themselves and their power to the Authority of a few Galilaean Fishermen and this the Authours of that Age say was the main reason why the Christian Religion was at all adventure rejected by the Roman Senate because it would allow none other beside it self And first as for the Jewish Religion beside its very great Antiquity it was establisht by Divine Authority and therefore with plausible appearance of reason believed by the Jews to be of eternal Obligation at least not otherways reversible but with the same dreadfull signs and appearances of the Divine Presence wherewith it was at first enacted and therefore when a young Man should take upon him to cancel the onely true way of worshipping the onely true God that design seem'd so like to Blasphemy and Idolatry that his very pretending to it without any farther enquiry was whatever he could say or doe an invincible prejudice and an unpardonable crime This is evident through the whole History of his Life that the Jews every where concluded him an Impostor because he set up against Moses and then let him work what Miracles he would they would regard neither him nor them And particularly this was the case of the Controversie when he cured the Man that was born Blind when the matter of Fact was evident beyond all contradiction by the Testimony of his Parents and by the confession of all the Neighbours who knew him to have sat and begged in a certain place for many years yet notwithstanding all this the Pharisees concluded against his doing any Miracles because he was a Sinner that is as they thought a Blasphemer of Moses Law and when the blind Man argues with them that it was such a Miracle as had never been done from the beginning of the World before it was all one for that they answer all with this peremptory Assertion We know that God spake unto Moses as for this fellow we know not from whence he is So that whatever Miracles he worked they were not to be regarded because he derogated from the Authority of Moses And therefore Origen very well observes that the difficulty of our Saviour's Work was much greater than that of Moses from the great prejudices of the People against his Undertaking For Moses had to doe with the Off spring of Abraham who had all along observed the Law of Circumcision and those other Rites and Customs that he had delivered down to his Posterity and onely undertook to deliver them from a grievous Bondage and bring them into that happy Land that God had promised to their Forefathers But our Saviour was sent to a People to command them to forsake that way of Worship in which they had been educated and to prescribe a new model of Religion against an old one that had been settled by Divine Authority and therefore instead of being complyed with as Moses was he was sure to meet with all the fiercest contradiction both of Zeal and Malice And for this reason says he it was that it was so requisite that he should doe greater Miracles than Moses or any of the Prophets were recorded to have done to convince them that God had given him greater Authority and so thereby obliged them to submit to his Discipline as they had hitherto done to that of Moses and the Prophets And as the Eternity of the Law of Moses was at that time an insuperable prejudice against Christianity so is it to this very day as may be seen in the Writings of the Jewish Doctours who always lay this supposition at the bottom of their Disputes against the Divine Authority of the Christian Law But of the prejudices of the Jews I shall give a farther account when I come to shew the reasons of their Infidelity notwithstanding the Gospel brought all that evidence along with it that we pretend it did And then as for the Religion of the Gentiles beside its proud pretence to the greatest Antiquity it now valued it self upon a much prouder title of being the Religion of the Empire and by reason of the vast extent of that it was rooted in all parts of it with more strength and unity than it could have been under several Governments and there is nothing that can make People more fond of their Religion than to possess them with a belief of its Universality Now when a Religion so Catholick was settled by the Laws was own'd by the Emperours and was made the onely Religion of Power and Interest in the World its Votaries could not endure to see it treated with scorn and dishonour by an upstart Sect of Men destitute of all Power and Authority And for this reason is it that Pliny Tacitus and Suetonius inveigh against Christianity with so much scorn and indignation not that they had any concern for Religion themselves being profest Epicureans and so inwardly as great despisers of Paganism as the Christians could pretend to be But they were angry that a Religion abetted by the Emperours and the great Statesmen such as themselves were or pretended to be should be so dishonourably born down by a company of superstitious and despicable Jews And that proved another very great disadvantage to Christianity the force of Laws and the interest of Government against its reception In that Statesmen are ever jealous of all Innovations in Religion as dangerous to the present Government so that though themselves look upon all Religion as a meer design of State-craft yet they are very zealous for that which they find already establisht as that by which they enjoy their present security and therefore vigilant against all alterations as naturally tending to the subversion of the Civil State So that it is none of their business to enquire into the pleas of a new Religion but its being new is with them a sufficient reason of proceeding against it as being Sedition ipso facto against the establisht Law And this was the main reason of most of those many severe Edicts and Rescripts of several Emperours against the Christians who looked upon their numerous Assemblies upon pretence of Religion as dangerous Associations against the State of the Empire and particularly Trajan a wise and politick Prince who either because he would not give the Christians the advantage of pleading Religion or suffering for it or rather out of his particular jealousie and fear of Tumults put in execution against them the Law against the Heteriae which forbad all manner of numerous Meetings upon what account soever though onely of Friendship or Good-fellowship for which those Heteriae were first instituted so that upon pretence of this Law he seem'd not to proceed against them upon the account of Religion but as unlawfull Riots and Tumults against the State § XXII Now from the concurrence of all these mighty prejudices against Christianity it met
of him upon his knees to make him Emperour to whom Apollonius with the state and authority of a God answered I have made thee so viz. by my Interest with the Gods and he so far gratified the vanity of the Man as to seem to receive the Empire at his hands and thus was he assured of his Empire by Men of greatest Reputation for both Religions for as there was no Jew at that time to be compared to Josephus for knowledge and learning in the Antiquities of his own Nation so Apollonius was then the most famous and renowned Saint in the World for the Heathen Religion now whilst he stayed at Alexandria a Blind and a Lame Man being warn'd so to doe by the God Serapis address themselves to him for a Cure and obtain it so that considering the circumstances of the story by it self it looks so like fraud and flattery as to betray it self For the report of his having been abused into the conceit of being the Messias in Judaea being probably come to Alexandria where great numbers of Jews resided it is likely that they would not come short of their Country-men in doing honour to the Emperour and so put these two counterfeits upon the design and there are enough of such dissembling Cripples to be had in great Cities for it being foretold that the Messias when he came should among other Miracles cure the Lame and the Blind they thought it an acceptable piece of flattery thus to way-lay his Ambition or rather this design was set on foot by the Egyptians a fawning crafty and flattering sort of People but chiefly by Apollonius for the honour of that Religion for which he was so zealous and therefore by this artifice confirm'd his own predicton of the Empire by the Authority of his Gods for they were sent on their Errand by Serapis But whoever contrived it and however it pleased the Emperour's humour it at first surprised him so as to move his laughter and scorn and to refuse the attempt with a very great deal either of seeming or real Reluctancy though at last he suffer'd himself to be overcome by the great importunity of the by-standers and the assurance of the Physicians that the thing was possible and then perform'd it in publick with all imaginable pomp and solemnity either as if himself had been beforehand privy to the plot or had now smelt out the design of the Complement Now what wise Man could compare this one theatrical piece of Court-flattery with all the Miracles of our Saviour and his Apostles the meer suspicion of these pretended Cripples being counterfeits at least the absolute uncertainty of it destroys its credit whereas the impossibility of suspecting any fraud or flattery in our Saviour's Miracles is an undoubted demonstration of their reality Beside that the Emperour was assured by the Physicians that the Men were not past a natural Cure and so not to be compared with our Saviour's Miracles most whereof were done upon Persons naturally incurable But to wave this I cannot give so much credit to a story that smells so rankly of imposture as to suppose the possibility of its truth and therefore I shall onely desire the Reader to compare it as he finds it under so many disadvantages of suspicion with the credibility of all those motives of belief that we have produced for the History of our Saviour's Life Death and Resurrection and then leave it to his own ingenuity to judge whether it be reasonable to oppose one story so miserably suspicious to a thousand others guarded with all the advantages of proof against all possible cavils and exceptions § XXVII But the Man of Wonders is Apollonius Tyanaeus of whom they boast and insult as the true Heathen Messias in that he wrought not as Vespasian did one or two chance Miracles but his whole Life was all prodigy and equal to our Saviour's both for the number and the wonder of his Works But here first we have in part already shewn what undoubted Records we have of the Life of Jesus whereas all the credit of Apollonius his History depends upon the Authority of one single Man who beside that he lived an hundred years after him ventured nothing as the Apostles did in confirmation of its truth but onely composed it in his Study thereby as appears from his frequent digressions to take occasion of communicating all the learning he had raked together to the World Nay so far was he from incurring any loss by the Work that he was set upon it by a great Empress whose religious Zeal in the Cause would be sure to see him well rewarded And though he made use of the Commentaries of Damis the inseparable Companion of Apollonius yet he confesses that Damis himself never publisht his own Commentaries but that a Friend of Damis communicated them to the Empress which himself might probably have forged as is common in Courts to pick her pocket However as for Damis himself it is evident from Philostratus his whole Story that he was a very simple Man and that Apollonius onely pickt him up as a fit Sancho Panche to exercise his Wit upon so that upon all occasions we find him not onely baffling the Esquire in Disputes but breaking Jests upon him which he always takes with much thankfulness and more humility still admiring his Master's Wisedom but much more his Wit But after all what the Story of Damis was or whether there were ever any such Story we have no account unless from Philostratus himself and therefore we must resolve it all into his Authority alone And there it is evident that he was neither a God nor a Divine Man as his Friends boasted nor a Magician or Conjurer as his Enemies imagin'd but a meer fanatick and pedantick Pythagorean that for the honour of his Sect travel'd as many others have done into all parts of the World and when he return'd home told his Country-men that all Men renown'd for Wisedom all the World over were of the Sect of the Pythagoreans and then for the advancement of their Authority told strange and prodigious tales of their wonder-working Power Though here either he or his Historian has acquitted himself so awkardly as utterly to spoil the tale and defeat the design This Eusebius has shewn at large in his Book against Hierocles by taking apieces all parts of the Story and discovering all its flaws and incoherences but I shall content my self with proving the vanity of the whole from the notorious falshood of one particular Narration upon which depends all that extraordinary power that he pretends to and that is his conversation with the Indian Brachmans from whom if we may believe his account of himself he learnt all that he could doe more than the common Philosophers of Greece And if this prove a Romance all the rest of the History must unavoidably follow its fortune and for this little proof will serve the turn when most of the Stories are so