lefs fo, that fix thousand foot and feven hundred horfe-men fhould have fuffered themfelves to have been all murdered in a place where two hundred men only might have kept off a whole army. The account of this pretended butchery is introduced with all the marks of impofture: "When the carth groaned under the tyranny "of Dioclefian, heaven was peopled with "martyrs." Now, this event, fuch as it is related, is fuppofed to have happened in 236, the very time in which Dioclefian most favoured the Chriftians, and that the Roman empire was in a state of the greatest tranquility. But to cut short this matter at once, no fuch legion as the Theban ever existed: the Romans were both too haughty and too wife to form a corps of thofe Egyptians, who ferved only as flaves in Rome, Verna Canopi: we may as well fuppofe them to have had a Jewish legion. We have the names of two and thirty legions that formed the principal military force of the Roman empire: and it is very certain, the Theban legion is not be found among them. In a word, we may rank this ftory with the acroftic verfes of the Sybils, which are faid to have foretold the miracles wrought by Jefus Christ, and with many other like fpurious productions, which falfe zeal has trumped up to impofe upon credulity. CHAP.

СНАР. Х.

Of the DANGER of FALSE LEGENDS and

ΜΑ

PERSECUTION.

ANKIND have been too long imposed upon by falfhood: it is therefore time that we should come to the knowledge of the few truths that can be diftinguished from amidft the clouds of fiction which cover the Roman Hiftory from the times of Tacitus and Suetonius, and with which the annals of the other nations of antiquity have almost always been obfcured.

Can any one, for example, believe that the Romans, a grave and modeft people, could have condemned Chriftian virgins, the children of perfons of the first quality, to common proftitution? This is affuredly very inconsistent with the noble aufterity of that nation, from whom we received our laws, and who punished fo rigorously the leaft tranfgreffion of chastity in their veftals. Thefe fhameful ftories may indeed be found in the Actes finceres of Ruinart.

But should we believe thofe acts before the acts of the Apoftles? The Actes Sinceres tell us from Bollandus, that there were in the city of Ancira seven Christian virgins, each of them upwards of feventy, whom the governor Theodectes ordered to be deflowered by the young men of the place; but thefe poor maidens having escaped this difafter (as indeed there was great reason they fhould), he compelled them to affist stark naked at the mysteries of Diana, at which, by the way, no one ever affisted but in a veil. St. Theodotus, who, though indeed nothing more than an inn-keeper, was not the lefs pious for that, befought God devoutly that he would be pleafed to take away the lives of thefe holy maidens, left they should yield to temptation. God heard his prayer. The governor ordered them all to be thrown into a lake with a ftone about their neck; immediately after which they appeared to Theodotus, and begged of him, that he would not fuffer "their bodies to be devoured by the fishes." Thefe, it seems, were their own words.

Hereupon the inn-keeper faint, and some of his companions, went in the night-time to the fide of the lake, which was guarded by a party

ef

of foldiers, a heavenly torch going all the way before, to light them. When they came to the place where the guards were pofted, they faw a heavenly horfeman armed cap-a-pee, with a launce in his hand, who fell upon the foldiers and difperfed them, while St. Theodotus drew the dead bodies of the virgins out of the water. He was afterwards carried before the governor, who ordered his head to be ftruck off, without the heavenly horfeman interfering to prevent it. However difpofed we may be to pay all due reverence to the true martyrs of our holy religion, we must confefs it is very hard to believe. the ftory of Bollandus and Buinart.

Need I add to this the legend of young St. Romanus? Eufebius tells us, that having been condemned to be burnt, he was accordingly thrown into the fire, when fome Jews, who were prefent, made a mock of Jefus Chrift, who fuffered his followers to be burnt when God had delivered Shadrac, Mefchec, and Abednego out of the firy furnace. No fooner had the Jews uttered this blafphemy, than they beheld St. Romanus walking triumphant and unhurt from forth the flaming pile: this being reported to the emperor, he gave orders for his F 6 being

being pardoned, telling the judge that he would not have an affair upon his hands with God, (a ftrange expreffion for Dioclefian!) The judge, however, notwithstanding the emperor's clemency, ordered St. Romanus to have his tongue cut out; and, though he had executioners at hand, commanded the operation to be performed by a furgeon. Young Romanus, who had from his birth laboured under on impediment of fpeech, no fooner loft his tongue than he fpoke diftin&ly and with great volubility. Upon this, the furgeon received a fevere reprimand; when, in order to fhow that he had performed his operation, fecundum artem, he laid hold of a man who was going by, from whom he cut juft the fame portion of tongue, as he had done from St. Romanus, of which the patient inftant ly died, for, adds our author very learnedly, "Anatomy teaches us, that a man cannot live "without his tongue." If Eufebius did really write fuch ftuff, and it has not been added by fome other hand, what degree of credit can we give to his hiftory?

We have the relation of the martyrdom of St. Felicity and her feven children, who are faid