TILLE MONT. knowledge of Ecclesiastical History; nor is it necessary that I should remind them how much the charms, the influence, the devotion of Clotilda, and of her great-grand-daughter Bertha, contributed to the conversion of France and England. Religion may accept, without a blush, the services of the purest and most gentle portion of the human species: but there are some advocates who would disgrace Christianity, if Christianity could be disgraced, by the manner in which they defend her cause. XV. As I could not readily procure the works of Gregory of Nyssa, I borrowed* from the accurate and indefatigable Tillemont, a passage in the life of Gregory Thaumaturgus, or the Wonderworker, which affirmed, that when the Saint took possession of his episcopal see, he found only SEVENTEEN Christians in the city of Neo-Cæsarea, and the adjacent country, "Les environs, la campagne, le pays d'alentour." (Mem. Eccies. tom. iv. p. 677. 691. Edit. Brusselles, 1706.) These expressions of Tillemont, to whom I explicitly acknowledged my obligation, appeared synonymous to the word diocese, the whole territory entrusted to the pastoral care of the Wonder-worker, and I added the epithet of extensive; because I was apprised that Neo-Cæsarea was the capital of the Polemoniac Pontus, and that the whole kingdom of Pontus, which stretched above five hundred miles along the coast of the Euxine, was divided Gibbon, p. 605. N. 156. between between sixteen or seventeen bishops. (See the Geographia Ecclesiastica of Charles de St. Paul, and Lucas Holstenius, p. 249, 250, 251.) Thus far I may not be thought to have deserved any censure; but the omission of the subsequent part of the same passage, which imports, that at his death the Wonder-worker left no more than seventeen Pagans, may seem to wear a partial and suspicious aspect. Let me therefore first observe, as some evidence of an impartial disposition, that I easily admitted, as the cool observation of the philosophic Lucian, the angry and interested complaint of the false prophet Alexander, that Pontus was filled with Christians. This complaint was made under the reigns of Marcus or of Commodus, with whom the impostor so admirably exposed by Lucian was con temporary and I had contented myself with remarking, that the numbers of Christians must have been very unequally distributed in the several parts of Pontus, since the diocese of Neo-Cæsarea contained, above sixty years afterwards, only seventeen Christians. Such was the inconsiderable flock which Gregory began to feed about the year two hundred and forty; and the real or fabulous conversions ascribed to that Wonder-working Bishop, during a reign of thirty years, are totally foreign to the state of Christianity in the preceding century. This obvious reflection may serve to answer the objection of Mr, Davis,* and of another PAGI. adversary, who on this occasion is more liberal than Mr. Davis of those harsh epithets so familiar to the tribe of polemics. XVI." Mr. Gibbon says,t Pliny was sent into Bithynia (according to Pagi) in the year 110.' "Now that accurate chronologer places it in the year 102. See the fact recorded in his CriticoHistorico Chronologica in Annales C. Baronii, A. D. 102. p. 99. sæc. 2. § 3." "I appeal to my reader, whether this anachronism does not plainly prove that our historian never looked into Pagi's Chronology, though he has not hesitated to make a pompous reference to him in his note?" I cannot help observing that either Mr. Davis's dictionary is extremely confined, or that in his philosophy all sins are of equal magnitude. Every error of fact or language, every instance where he does not know how to reconcile the original and the reference, he expresses by the gentle word of misrepresentation. An inaccurate appeal to the sentiment of Pagi, on a subject where I must have been perfectly disinterested, might have been styled a lapse of memory, instead of being censured as the effect of vanity and ignorance. Pagi is neither a difficult nor an uncommon writer, nor could I hope to derive much additional fame from * Dr. Randolph, in Chelsum's Remarks, p. 159, 160. Davis, p. 140. a pom a pompous quotation of his writings, which I had never seen. The words employed by Mr. Davis, of fact, of record, of anachronism, are unskilfully chosen, and so unhappily applied, as to betray a very shameful ignorance, either of the English language, or of the nature of this chronological question. The date of Pliny's government of Bithynia is not a fact recorded by any ancient writer, but an opinion which modern critics have variously formed, from the consideration of presumptive and collateral evidence. Cardinal Baronius placed the consulship of Pliny one year too late; and, as he was persuaded that the old practice of the rcpublic still subsisted, he naturally supposed that Pliny obtained his province immediately after the expiration of his consulship. He therefore sends him into Bithynia in the year which, according to his erroneous computation, coincided with the year one hundred and four (Baron. Annal. Eccles. A. D. 103. No. 1. 104. No. 1.), or, according to the true chronology, with the year one hundred and two, of the Christian æra. This mistake of Baronius, Pagi, with the assistance of his friend Cardinal Noris, undertakes to correct. From an accurate parallel of the Annals of Trajan and the Epistles of Pliny, he deduces his proofs that Pliny remained at Rome several years after his consulship, by his own ingenious, though sometimes fanciful theory, of the imperial Quinquennalia, &c. Pagi at last discovers that Pliny made his entrance into Bithynia in the year one hundred and ten. "Plinius "Plinius igitur anno Christi CENTESIMO DECIMO Bithyniam intravit." Pagi, tom. i. p. 100. I will be more indulgent to my adversary than he has been to me: I will admit that he has looked into Pagi; but I must add, that he has only looked into that accurate chronologer. To rectify the errors, which, in the course of a laborious and original work, had escaped the diligence of the Cardinal, was the arduous task which Pagi proposed to execute and for the sake of perspicuity, he distributes his criticisms according to the particular dates, whether just or faulty, of the Chronology of Baronius himself. Under the year 102, Mr. Davis confusedly saw a long argument about Pliny and Bithynia, and without condescending to read the author whom he pompously quotes, this hasty critic imputes to him the opinion which he had so laboriously destroyed, My readers, if any readers have accompanied me thus far, must be satisfied, and indeed satiated, with the repeated proofs which I have made of the weight and temper of my adversary's weapons. They have, in every assault, fallen dead and lifeless to the ground: they have more than once recoiled, and dangerously wounded the unskilful hand that had presumed to use them. I have now examined all the misrepresentations and inaccuracies, which even for a moment could perplex the ignorant or deceive the credulous: the few imputations which I have neglected are still more palpably false, or still more evidently trifling, and |