



Produced by David Reed









HISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman




VOLUME TWO




Chapter XVI: Conduct Towards The Christians, From Nero To
Constantine.--Part I.

     The Conduct Of The Roman Government Towards The Christians,
     From The Reign Of Nero To That Of Constantine. [1a]

[Footnote 1a: The sixteenth chapter I cannot help considering as a
very ingenious and specious, but very disgraceful extenuation of the
cruelties perpetrated by the Roman magistrates against the Christians.
It is written in the most contemptibly factious spirit of prejudice
against the sufferers; it is unworthy of a philosopher and of humanity.
Let the narrative of Cyprian's death be examined. He had to relate
the murder of an innocent man of advanced age, and in a station deemed
venerable by a considerable body of the provincials of Africa, put to
death because he refused to sacrifice to Jupiter. Instead of pointing
the indignation of posterity against such an atrocious act of tyranny,
he dwells, with visible art, on the small circumstances of decorum and
politeness which attended this murder, and which he relates with as much
parade as if they were the most important particulars of the event.
Dr. Robertson has been the subject of much blame for his real or
supposed lenity towards the Spanish murderers and tyrants in America.
That the sixteenth chapter of Mr. G. did not excite the same or greater
disapprobation, is a proof of the unphilosophical and indeed fanatical
animosity against Christianity, which was so prevalent during the latter
part of the eighteenth century.--Mackintosh: see Life, i. p. 244, 245.]

If we