The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman



Vol. 2



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

Part I.

Note: 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