Second, the Christians condemned and abhorred the public religion of the state, so closely connected with the affairs of the government, and hence they were judged to be enemies of the state, a circumstance which made them objects of detestation to those intrusted with the administration of the laws. {LVII} Third, the Christians in their worship employed no images, nor temples, nor incense, nor sacrifices; neither did they represent their God by any corporeal figure or symbol, therefore they were adjudged to be atheists, and accordingly detested. Fourth, the gloom and austere aspect of the Christians, and their thorough abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, their denunciation of war, together with their frequent predictions of impending divine judgments, caused them to be regarded as the enemies of mankind. Fifth, the secrecy in which they conducted their religious services (a policy first born of necessity, because of the fear of their adversaries, and afterwards continued under the false notion that it would render their sacred institutions more respectable) drew upon them the suspicion that they only "concealed what they would have blushed to disclose;" and this left them open to the misrepresentation and calumny of their enemies, by which the fury of the multitude was aroused against them. Sixth, the severe simplicity of the Christian mode of worship, employing as it did neither sacrifices nor an elaborate priesthood--excited the animosity of the pagan priests and their servitors, in exact proportion as the Christians became a menace to their occupation; for it was painfully apparent to them that if Christianity was successful there would be no need of the pagan priesthood--its occupation would be gone. All these alleged causes for the persecution of the Christians within the Roman empire may be allowed, though some of them may be more properly regarded as pretexts for, than causes of the persecution. But back of all the assigned causes--which are at best but secondary in their nature--one may see moving a force, the primary cause of the persecution, of which the apprehensions of magistrates, the hatred of the pagan priesthood, and the clamor of the multitude were but the outward manifestations. That primary cause of the persecution of the Christians is to be found in the bitter hatred of that dark spirit who in heaven, before he fell from his high estate, was known under the splendid appellation of "The Light Bearer," "Lucifer," "Son of the Morning," as high in favor as in station, before his sin of rebellion against the Father-God. [49]