Paley boldly states that Martial (born A.D. 43, died about A.D. 100)
makes the Christians "the subject of his ridicule," because he wrote an
epigram on the stupidity of admiring any vain-glorious fool who would
rush to be tormented for the sake of notoriety. Hard-set must Christians
be for evidence, when reduced to rely on such pretended allusions.

Epictetus (flourished first half of second century) is claimed as
another witness, because he states that "It is possible a man may arrive
at this temper, and become indifferent to these things from madness, or
from habit, as the Galileans" (Book iv., chapter 7). The Galileans,
i.e., the people of Galilee, appear to have had a bad name, and it is
highly probable that Epictetus simply referred to them, just as he might
have said as an equivalent phrase for stupidity, "like the Boeotians."
In addition to this, the followers of Judas the Gaulonite were known as
Galileans, and were remarkable for the "inflexible constancy which, in
defence of their cause, rendered them insensible of death and tortures"
("Decline and Fall," vol. ii., p. 214).

Marcus Aurelius (born A.D. 121, died A.D. 180) is Paley's last support,
as he urges that fortitude in the face of death should arise from
judgment, "and not from obstinacy, like the Christians." As no one
disputes the existence of a sect called Christians when Marcus Aurelius
wrote, this testimony is not specially valuable.

Paley, so keen to swoop down on any hint that can be twisted into an
allusion to the Christians, entirely omits the interesting letter
written by the Emperor Adrian to his brother-in-law Servianus, A.D. 134.
The evidence is not of an edifying character, and this accounts for the
omission: "The worshippers of Serapis are Christians, and those are