Virgin Saints and Martyrs

Nonfiction, Religion & Spirituality, New Age, History, Fiction & Literature
Cover of the book Virgin Saints and Martyrs by Sabine Baring-Gould, Library of Alexandria
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Sabine Baring-Gould ISBN: 9781465613554
Publisher: Library of Alexandria Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint: Language: English
Author: Sabine Baring-Gould
ISBN: 9781465613554
Publisher: Library of Alexandria
Publication: March 8, 2015
Imprint:
Language: English
In the second century Lyons was the Rome of Gaul as it is now the second Paris of France. It was crowded with temples and public monuments. It was moreover the Athens of the West, a resort of scholars. Seated at the confluence of two great rivers, the Rhône and the Sâone, it was a centre of trade. It is a stately city now. It was more so in the second century when it did not bristle with the chimneys of factories pouring forth their volumes of black smoke, which the atmosphere, moist from the mountains, carries down so as to envelop everything in soot. In the great palace, now represented by the hospital, the imbecile Claudius and the madman Caligula were born. To the east andsouth far away stand Mont Blanc and the snowy range on the Dauphiné Alps. Lyons is a city that has at all times summed in it the finest as well as the worst characteristic of the Gallic people. The rabble of Lyons were ferocious in 177, and ferocious again in 1793; but at each epoch, during the Pagan terror and the Democratic terror, it produced heroes of faith and endurance. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher full of good intentions, and a sentimental lover of virtue. But he fondly conceived that virtue could only be found in philosophy, and that Christianity, which was a doctrine and not a speculation, must be wrong; and as its chief adherents belonged to the slave and needy classes, that therefore it was beneath his dignity to inquire into it. He was a stickler for the keeping up of old Roman institutions, and the maintenance of such rites as were sanctioned by antiquity; and because the Christians refused to give homage to the gods and to swear by the genius of the emperor, he ordered that they should be persecuted to the death. He had been a pretty, curly-haired boy, and a good-looking young man. He had kept himself respectable, and looked on himself with smug self-satisfaction accordingly. Had he stooped to inquire what were the tenets, and what the lives, of those whom he condemned to death, he would have shrunk with horror from the guilt of proclaiming a general persecution. In Lyons, as elsewhere, when his edict arrived the magistrates were bound to seek out and sentence such as believed in Christ. A touching letter exists, addressed by the Church of Lyons to those of Asia and Phrygia giving an account of what it suffered; and as the historian Eusebius embodied it in his history, it happily has been preserved from the fingering, and rewriting, and heightening with impossible marvels which fell to the lot of so many of the Acts of the Martyrs, when the public taste no longer relished the simple food of the unadorned narratives that were extant.
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
In the second century Lyons was the Rome of Gaul as it is now the second Paris of France. It was crowded with temples and public monuments. It was moreover the Athens of the West, a resort of scholars. Seated at the confluence of two great rivers, the Rhône and the Sâone, it was a centre of trade. It is a stately city now. It was more so in the second century when it did not bristle with the chimneys of factories pouring forth their volumes of black smoke, which the atmosphere, moist from the mountains, carries down so as to envelop everything in soot. In the great palace, now represented by the hospital, the imbecile Claudius and the madman Caligula were born. To the east andsouth far away stand Mont Blanc and the snowy range on the Dauphiné Alps. Lyons is a city that has at all times summed in it the finest as well as the worst characteristic of the Gallic people. The rabble of Lyons were ferocious in 177, and ferocious again in 1793; but at each epoch, during the Pagan terror and the Democratic terror, it produced heroes of faith and endurance. The Emperor Marcus Aurelius was a philosopher full of good intentions, and a sentimental lover of virtue. But he fondly conceived that virtue could only be found in philosophy, and that Christianity, which was a doctrine and not a speculation, must be wrong; and as its chief adherents belonged to the slave and needy classes, that therefore it was beneath his dignity to inquire into it. He was a stickler for the keeping up of old Roman institutions, and the maintenance of such rites as were sanctioned by antiquity; and because the Christians refused to give homage to the gods and to swear by the genius of the emperor, he ordered that they should be persecuted to the death. He had been a pretty, curly-haired boy, and a good-looking young man. He had kept himself respectable, and looked on himself with smug self-satisfaction accordingly. Had he stooped to inquire what were the tenets, and what the lives, of those whom he condemned to death, he would have shrunk with horror from the guilt of proclaiming a general persecution. In Lyons, as elsewhere, when his edict arrived the magistrates were bound to seek out and sentence such as believed in Christ. A touching letter exists, addressed by the Church of Lyons to those of Asia and Phrygia giving an account of what it suffered; and as the historian Eusebius embodied it in his history, it happily has been preserved from the fingering, and rewriting, and heightening with impossible marvels which fell to the lot of so many of the Acts of the Martyrs, when the public taste no longer relished the simple food of the unadorned narratives that were extant.

More books from Library of Alexandria

Cover of the book A History of North American Birds: Land Birds (Complete) by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book The Secret of the Universe by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book The Philosophy of Spirit by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book An Introduction to Entomology, or Elements of the Natural History of the Insects, Volume III of IV by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book The History of Virginia in Four Parts by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book What and Where is God? A Human Answer to the Deep Religious Cry of the Modern Soul by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Suma y narracion de los Incas, que los indios llamaron Capaccuna, que fueron señores de la ciudad del Cuzco y de todo lo á ella subjeto by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Atlantic Classics by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs: Three Essays on the Powers of Reproduction by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Petits écrits philosophiques et religieux by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book The Basket Woman: A Book of Indian Tales for Children by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Tahiti: Roman aus der Südsee (Complete) by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Aphorisms by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book Perolas e Diamantes: Contos Infantis by Sabine Baring-Gould
Cover of the book English Painters: With a Chapter on American Painters by Sabine Baring-Gould
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy