Mr. Long seems inclined to try and throw doubt over the
persecution at Lyons, by pointing out that the letter of the Lyons
Christians relating it, alleges it to have been attended by miraculous
and incredible incidents. "A man," he says, "can only act consistently
by accepting all this letter or rejecting it all, and we cannot blame
him for either." But it is contrary to all experience to say that
because a fact is related with incorrect additions, and embellishments,
therefore it probably never happened at all; or that it is not, in
general, easy for an impartial mind to distinguish between the fact and
the embellishments. I cannot doubt that the Lyons persecution took
place, and that the punishment of Christians for being Christians was
sanctioned by Marcus Aurelius. But then I must add that nine modern
readers out of ten, when they read this, will, I believe, have a
perfectly false notion of what the moral action of Marcus Aurelius, in
sanctioning that punishment, really was. They imagine Trajan, or
Antoninus Pius, or Marcus Aurelius, fresh from the perusal of the
Gospel, fully aware of the spirit and holiness of the Christian saints,
ordering their extermination because he loved darkness rather than
light.
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