The extent and duration of this spiritual conspiracy seemed to render it everyday more deserving of his animadversion.

We have already seen that the active and successful zeal of the Christians had insensibly diffused them through every province and almost every city of the empire.

The new converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which every where assumed a different character from the rest of mankind.

Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, [16] 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." [17] [Footnote 14: The emperor Trajan refused to incorporate a company of 150 firemen, for the use of the city of Nicomedia.