The Pagan multitude, reserving their gratitude for temporal
benefits alone, rejected the inestimable present of life and
immortality, which was offered to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth.
His mild constancy in the midst of cruel and voluntary
sufferings, his universal benevolence, and the sublime simplicity
of his actions and character, were insufficient, in the opinion
of those carnal men, to compensate for the want of fame, of
empire, and of success; and whilst they refused to acknowledge
his stupendous triumph over the powers of darkness and of the
grave, they misrepresented, or they insulted, the equivocal
birth, wandering life, and ignominious death, of the divine
Author of Christianity. ^13

[Footnote 12: According to Justin Martyr, (Apolog. Major, c.
70-85,) the daemon who had gained some imperfect knowledge of the
prophecies, purposely contrived this resemblance, which might
deter, though by different means, both the people and the
philosophers from embracing the faith of Christ.]
[Footnote 13: In the first and second books of Origen, Celsus
treats the birth and character of our Savior with the most
impious contempt. The orator Libanius praises Porphyry and
Julian for confuting the folly of a sect., which styles a dead
man of Palestine, God, and the Son of God. Socrates, Hist.
Ecclesiast. iii. 23.]

The personal guilt which every Christian had contracted, in
thus preferring his private sentiment to the national religion,
was aggravated in a very high degree by the number and union of
the criminals. It is well known, and has been already observed,
that Roman policy viewed with the utmost jealousy and distrust