Your cruelty is our glory. Only see you to it, that in having such things as these to endure, we do not feel ourselves constrained to rush forth to the combat, if only to prove that we have no dread of them, but on the contrary, even invite their infliction.  When Arrius Antoninus was driving things hard in Asia, the whole Christians of the province, in one united band, presented themselves before his judgment-seat; on which, ordering a few to be led forth to execution, he said to the rest, “O miserable men, if you wish to die, you have precipices or halters.” If we should take it into our heads to do the same thing here, what will you make of so many thousands, of such a multitude of men and women, persons of every sex and every age and every rank, when they present themselves before you?  How many fires, how many swords will be required? What will be the anguish of Carthage itself, which you will have to decimate,⁴⁵⁶

456 [Compare De Fuga, cap. xii.  It is incredible that our author could exaggerate in speaking to the chief magistrate of Carthage.]

We have no master but God. He is before you, and cannot be hidden from you, but to Him you can do no injury. But those whom you regard as masters are only men, and one day they themselves must die. Yet still this community will be undying, for be assured that just in the time of its seeming overthrow it is built up into greater power. For all who witness the noble patience of its martyrs, as struck with misgivings, are inflamed with desire to examine into the matter in question;⁴⁵⁷

457 [Mosheim’s strange oversight, in neglecting to include such considerations, in accounting for the growth of the church, is justly censured by Kaye, p. 124.]

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