An historical dissertation upon the Thebean Legion plainly proving it to be fabulous / by John Dubourdieu ...

CHAP. III. (Book 3)

That it is worth ones Labour to examine the Passion of the Thebean Souldiers, though it passes for current amongst all sorts of Christian Societies. (Book 3)

WE shall now endeavour to prove, that there were never any such Persons as these Thebean Souldiers, and that the Relation of their Martyrdom, said to have been writ by Eu∣cherius, Bishop of Lions, is altogether false and Counterfeit.

Avia Pieridum peragro loca, nullius ante Trita Solo.

This matter is quite new, and was never hand∣led, for ought I know, by any Author before. Though after so many Books written, there is, one would think, hardly any thing in Ecclesiasti∣cal Antiquity that hath escaped the strict Exami∣nation of judicious Criticks; some Learned Men indeed have suspected the Passion of the Thebean Legion to have been a Fiction, but none of them had the Courage to oppose an Opinion which they saw so Universally established.

If general Approbation might be admitted as a Proof, there would be scarce any Opinion more

Probable than that of the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion, if we consider the great number of grave and Learned Authors who have all as∣serted it as an undoubted matter of Fact. Rome, Geneva, the Lutherans, the Church of England, and generally all Christian Societies have given Credit to the History of this Legion; and that, no doubt, upon account of the Honour which they imagined the Martyrdom of it did to the Christian Religion, by the wonderfulness of the Action, the greatness of Soul, and the Glo∣rious Characters of the Persons that suffered.

John Lewis Fabritius relates the Example of the Thebean Legion, in his Learned Dissertation concerning the just Limits of humane obedience, in order to establish this so important a Maxim in Morality; That we ought always to side with God, whenever there is more certainty and evi∣dence in the Prohibitions of God, than in the Ordinances of Princes. Archbishop Usher, a Man of so vast a knowledge in Ecclesiastical An∣tiquity, fell into the same common opinion: And the Martyrdom of the Thebean Souldiers, making for him in his Book of Regal Power, he lays as great a stress upon it, as if it were a thing of unquestionable certainty. The famous Grotius speaks twice of it in his Learned Book, * 1.1de jure Pacis & Belli, and makes use of it, as that which of all things he least doubted the Truth of. And though since the death of these two great Men, the exactness of Criticism upon the Works of the Fathers hath been much improved, yet the Martyrdom of the Thebean Legion is still

* 1.2 cryed up amongst those other popular Errours the World is fallen in Love with. Edward Ful∣ler, Bishop of Glocester, hath made it one of the Ornaments of a very fine Treatise, composed by him upon the great Design of Christianity, which is the Sanctification of Men. And Doctor * 1.3Cave, one of the Prebends of Windsor, brings in, with great great Pomp, the History of this Legion in that Work of his, in which he gives us a very fine Representation both of the Religi∣on and Manners of the Primitive Christians.

There is scarcely, I confess, any Divine who hath out-done him in the Study of Church History, as may appear by the great Volume he hath gi∣ven us upon the Writings of the Fathers. Now how great a respect soever we have for the ex∣traordinary merit of these Learned Authors, we ought to reject their Errours, be they never so Ancient. There is no prescription against Truth; and a long prepossession gives no right at all to Errour. I have seen, saith one of our Old Writers, the Birth of many Miracles in my time, and though they no sooner saw the Light, but they were stifled, we do however foresee the course they would have taken, had they happened to have li∣ved to their full Age. For the main business is to find out out the end of the thread, then you may wind as much as you please; and there is a greater distance from nothing to the least thing that may be, than there is from that least to the greatest that can be imagined. A private Errour first causeth a publick one; and then that publick Errour occasions other private ones. Thus the

whole work goes on, patch'd up and fashioned by a succession of several hands; so that the remotest witness knows more of the matter than the nearest, and the last inform'd is better perswaded of it than the first. This was exactly the way the Passion of the Thebean Souldiers first crept into the World, and then insensibly got credit in the Church. And they have been for these Eight or Nine Hundred Years in a quiet Possession of the glory of their Martyrdom, and do enjoy it peacably to this day, under the shadow and Authority of the greatest Names, and the most renowned Doctors of all Christian Communions. Now that we may distinguish the Romance from the Histo∣ry, we must remove all the Mists which the Le∣gendaries and Martyrology-makers have spread over it. For the support of so much of it as is purely Romantick; there are alledged Manuscripts and Old Writings; and we must shew that those who do pretend the greatest skill in Antiquities, are lyable to mistakes.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Crot. lib 1. c. 2. & Cap. 11. 11, 12.
• * 1.2

  Edward Fuller, the Des. of Christian. Sect. 3. c. 16. pag. 187.
• * 1.3

  Dr. Cave, Primitive Christ. part 3. c. 4. pag. 331.