3. Many of the Christian devotees developed a zeal amounting to mania, and, disregarding all prudence and discretion, gloried in the prospect of winning the martyr's crown. Some who had been left unassailed felt themselves aggrieved, and became their own accusers; while others openly committed acts of aggression with intent to bring resentment upon themselves.--(See Note 1, end of chapter.) These extravagances were doubtless encouraged by the excessive veneration accorded the memories and the bodily remains of those who had fallen as victims in the cause. The reverential respect so rendered developed later into the impious practice of martyr worship. 4. Commenting on the imprudent enthusiasm of the early Christians, Gibbon says: "The Christians sometimes supplied by their voluntary declaration the want of an accuser, rudely disturbed the public service of paganism, and, rushing in crowds round the tribunal of the magistrates, called upon them to pronounce and to inflict the sentence of the law. The behavior of the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers; but they seem to have received it with much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence and reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate despair, of stupid insensibility or of superstitious frenzy."--(Gibbon, "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," ch. XVI.) 5. But there is another side to the picture. While imprudent zealots invited dangers from which they might have remained exempt, others, affrighted at the possibility of being included among the victims, voluntarily deserted the Church and returned to heathen allegiances. Milner, speaking of conditions existing in the third century, and incorporating the words of Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, who lived at the time of the incident described, says: "Vast numbers lapsed into idolatry immediately. Even before men were accused as Christians, many ran to the forum and sacrificed to the gods as they were ordered; and the crowds of apostates were so great, that the magistrates wished to delay numbers of them till the next day, but they were importuned by the wretched suppliants to be allowed to prove themselves heathens that very night."--(Milner, "Church History," Cent. III, ch. 8.)