Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger, which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure.

"Whatever," says Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment." The precautions with which the disciples of Christ performed the offices of religion were at first dictated by fear and necessity; but they were continued from choice.

By imitating the awful secrecy which reigned in the Eleusinian mysteries, the Christians had flattered themselves that they should render their sacred institutions more respectable in the eyes of the Pagan world.

But the event, as it often happens to the operations of subtile policy, deceived their wishes and their expectations.

It was concluded, that they only concealed what they would have blushed to disclose.