Christians were put to fight for their lives in the same manner, and they rather chose to do it than deny their religion, they therefore got the name of _Paraboli and Parabolani_: which, though it was intended as a name of reproach and mockery, yet the Christians were not unwilling to take to themselves, being one of the truest characters that the heathens ever gave them. And therefore they sometimes gave themselves this name by way of allusion to the Roman Paraboli. As in the Passion of Abdo and Senne* in the time of Valerian, the martyrs who were exposed to be devoured by wild beasts in the amphitheatre, are said to enter, '_ut audacissimi Parabolani_,' as most resolute champions, that despised their own lives for their religion's sake. But the other name of _Desperati_ they rejected as a calumny, retorting it back upon their adversaries, who more justly deserved it. "Those," says Lactantius***, "who set a value upon their faith, and will not deny their God, they first torment and butcher with all their might, and then call them desperados, because they will not spare their bodies: as if any thing could be more desperate, than to torture and tear in pieces those whom you cannot but know to be innocent." * Acta Abdon. et Sennes ap. Suicer. ** Lact. Instil, lib. 5. c. 9. Desperates vocant, quia corpori suo minime parcunt, &c. {108} Tertullian mentions another name, which was likewise occasioned by their sufferings. The martyrs which were burnt alive, were usually tied to a board or stake of about six foot long, which the Romans called _semaxis_; and then they were surrounded or covered with faggots of small wood, which they called _sarmenia_. From this their punishment, the heathens, who turned every thing into mockery, gave all Christians the despiteful name of _Sarmentitii_ and _Semaxii_*. The heathen in Minucius*** takes occasion also to reproach them under the name of the sculking generation, or the men that loved to prate in corners and the dark. The ground of which scurrilous reflection was only this, that they were forced to hold their religious assemblies in the night to avoid the fury of the persecutions. Which Celsus**** himself owns, though otherwise prone enough to load them with hard names and odious reflections. The same heathen in Minucius gives them one * Tertul. Apol. t, 50. Licet nunc Sarmentitios et Semaxios appelletis, quia ad stipitem dimidii axis re-vincti, sarmentorum ambitu exurimur. ** Minuc. Octav. p. 25. Latebrosa et lucifugax natio, in publicum muta, in angulis garrula. *** Origen. c. Cel. lib. 1. p. 5. {109}