_Marcellinus_ succeeded _Caius_ on the 30th of _June_ 296. and governed Eight Years, Three Months, and Twenty-five Days, according to the most antient Records[493]: so that he must have died on the 24th of _October_ 304. The Love of Truth, which an Historian ought never to swerve from, obliges me to undertake the Defence of this Pope against the Church of _Rome_ herself, and most of her Divines, who, joining the _Donatists_ of _Africa_, have endeavoured to blacken his Memory with Aspersions equally wicked and groundless. For the Church of _Rome_ tells us, both in her Breviary and Martyrology, and her Divines must chime in with her, that _Marcellinus_ being apprehended during the Persecution of _Dioclesian_, he was persuaded by that Prince to deliver up the Holy Scripture to be burnt by the Pagans, agreeably to a late Edict, and at the same time to offer Incense to the Gods. This they found on the Acts of the Council of _Sinuessa_, which is supposed to have been summoned on that Occasion, and before which _Marcellinus_ is said to have been convicted by Seventy-two Witnesses of the above-mentioned Crimes. That such a scandalous Story, invented by the _Donatists_ of _Africa_, as St. _Austin_ affirms[494], should not only have been credited, but industriously propagated, by the Successors of _Marcellinus_, must seem very strange and surprising to those, who recollect with how much Zeal they have strove on other Occasions to conceal or excuse the least Imperfections in their Predecessors. If therefore they not only readily own the Apostasy of _Marcellinus_, but are the first to divulge it, and take care to make it known in the Breviary to those who scarce know any thing else, we may be well assured there is a Snake hid in the Grass; the more as it is certain almost beyond doubt, that no such Council was ever held; and consequently that the Acts upon which alone that Apostasy is founded, are supposititious. To unravel the Whole, the Reader must know, that the Fall of _Marcellinus_ made such a Noise in the Church, as we read in those Acts, that immediately a grand Council met, composed of no fewer than 300 Bishops. Before this Council _Marcellinus_ appeared; but, at his first Appearance, the Bishops, struck with Horror at the very Thought of judging the Head of the Church, the Judge of all, cried out with one Voice, _The first See is to be judged by nobody: accuse yourself, judge yourself, condemn yourself_. [Sidenote: _Their View, therein._] To this Testimony, so favourable to the ambitious Views of the Bishops of _Rome_, is intirely owing the Sanction which they have given to such Fables, highly injurious to the Memory of one of their best Predecessors. Without this Lenitive the Acts of the pretended Council of _Sinuessa_, supposing the Apostasy of a Pope, had been condemned; the Absurdities and Contradictions, which it is wholly made up of, had been set forth in a proper Light; and the Testimonies of _Theodoret_ and St.