And if it be true that he was a person of rank and education, those circumstances could serve only to aggravate his guilt.

He was burnt, or rather roasted, by a slow fire; and his executioners, zealous to revenge the personal insult which had been offered to the emperors, exhausted every refinement of cruelty, without being able to subdue his patience, or to alter the steady and insulting smile which in his dying agonies he still preserved in his countenance.

The Christians, though they confessed that his conduct had not been strictly conformable to the laws of prudence, admired the divine fervor of his zeal; and the excessive commendations which they lavished on the memory of their hero and martyr, contributed to fix a deep impression of terror and hatred in the mind of Diocletian.

[154] [Footnote 154: Lactantius only calls him quidam, et si non recte, magno tamer animo, &c., c.12.Eusebius (l.viii.c.

5) adorns him with secular honora Neither have condescended to mention his name; but the Greeks celebrate his memory under that of John.