discovered no such criminality. It is, be it noted, simultaneously with
the promulgation of these charges that the persecution of the Christians
takes place; during the first century very little is heard of such, and
there is very little persecution [see ante, pp. 209-213]. In the
following century the charges are frequent, and so are the persecutions.

To these strong arguments may be added the acknowledgment in 1. Cor.
xi., 17, 22, of disorder and drunkenness at these Agapae; the habit of
speaking of the communion feast as "the Christian _mysteries_," a habit
still kept up in the Anglican prayer-book; the fact that they took place
_at night_, under cover of darkness, a custom for which there was not
the smallest reason, unless the service were of a nature so
objectionable as to bring it under the ban of the tolerant Roman law;
and lastly, the use of the cross, and the sign of the cross, the central
Christian emblem, and one that, especially in connection with the
mysteries, is of no dubious signification. Thus, in the twilight in
which they were veiled in those early days, the Christians appear to us
as a sect of very different character to that bestowed upon them by
Paley. A little later, when they emerge into historical light, their own
writers give us sufficient evidence whereby we may judge them; and we
find them superstitious, grossly ignorant, quarrelsome, cruel, divided
into ascetics and profligates, between whom it is hard to award the palm
for degradation and indecency.

Having "proved"--in the above fashion--that a number of people in the
first century advanced "an extraordinary story," underwent persecution,
and altered their manner of life, because of it, Paley thinks it "in the
highest degree probable, that the story for which these persons
voluntarily exposed themselves to the fatigues and hardships which they
endured, was a _miraculous_ story; I mean, that they pretended to